Anton Arriola announces the change of direction of Kutxabank. The president of the bank emerged from a process of privatization of the savings banks Kutxa, Caja Vital and BBK spoke on Wednesday in Bilbao on a day organized by the Basque business association Cebek.

Privatize and grow. He says that in the last decade the offices have been reduced and the workers on the street have been left and "have not got into trouble", but now the bank wants to address the "growth challenge". "We have to grow, we have to grow beyond the borders of the Basque Country," he said.

He explains that the presence of Kutxabank is important in Madrid, Andalusia, Barcelona and Valencia, but "we have to grow geographically and with activities", he confirmed. To this end, although they have so far relied on the mortgage business, Kutxabank wants to invest in companies and is also studying important expansion projects of private banks and investment banks.

He complains about the tax that the Spanish Government has imposed on banks, although this year Kutxabank has had 52% more profits than last year.

Kutxabank is not safe

Arriola has acknowledged that the rise in interest rates has benefited Kutxabank, but warns that sinks like the Silicon Valley Bank have shown that "at what speed a liquidity crisis can reach and how it can spread".

Although the typology of this American bank is "very different" from Kutxabank, he acknowledges that in the financial sector there are currently "accelerators" related to the speed of digital technologies and that they can suddenly pull all the deposits from the bank: "It affects us all," he says. At least in the United States, they "have crossed fingers."