"We must try to adapt the possibilities of fintech to customer service, always valuing the opportunity to generate new types of income," said Juan Alcaraz, director general of CaixaBank, at the lecture on 'The new strategies implemented after the restructuring of the financial sector' recently given at School of Economics at the University of Navarra.

" Technologies must be at the service of the customer" so that they are "an instrument of loyalty" and build a great "customer experience". However, "we have to incorporate technology into efficiency," he recalled. The financial executive also stressed that, although the digitalization of banking will allow "all transactional operations" to be carried out, there will never come a time when this will be "exclusively online".

The general manager of CaixaBank, director , explained the restructuring that the financial sector has undergone since the real estate boom in 1996. A period in which "in a single year, housing was created for the population of ten Pamplonas", said the executive, who pointed out the increase from 200,000 to one million homes built per year during the gestation of the crisis. During this period, the financial sector doubled its resources with the opening of 25,000 bank branches in addition to those already existing at the beginning of the boom.

CaixaBank' s strategic line consisted of a "strategy of growth and consolidation," he stressed. "When the crisis began, we had 10 million customers and 5,000 branches. At the end of the crisis, we had 14 million customers and 5,000 branches". The core topicThe key to this strategy, according to the executive, was to "reinvent the strategy to generate other sources of income". Thus, through successive strategic plans, they opted for two new forms of business: the creation of new companies and the management of assets.

In addition to new sources of revenue generation, "when you make your strategy, the important thing is that you do it thinking about being a leader," said Alcaraz, who highlighted the human factor as core topic is this leadership. "In the strategy you have to put people first. They are the ones who will hold the keys to success". On a human level, the executive acknowledged that professionals in the sector "have had a hard time over the years" and expressed his satisfaction as a CaixaBank executive team member with the work carried out by his institution in the social sphere.