The present financial crisis has severely hit the Spanish savings banks sector. Of 45 savings banks in 2007 by the end of 2012 the number had dropped to only thirteen. Most of the institutions that have disappeared, have been consolidated into major groups, either by outright purchase by banks...

In the last eight centuries there have been hundreds of banking crises throughout the entire planet. Spain has not been an exception and our history is plagued with numerous financial disasters in which the collapse of one institution has jeopardized the stability of the whole financial...