Bankinter acelera la captación de clientes y gana 200.000 en un año

Bankinter has quickly increased its client base and gained 200,000 new customers in a single year. This expansion was initiated by Gloria Ortiz, who became the deputy chairman of Bankinter after acquiring the digital bank Evo. The primary goal was to target the mass market with a simple and fully online proposition, similar to competitors such as CaixaBank and Santander.

Bankinter has traditionally focused on medium and high-income segments, but the acquisition of Evo has allowed them to capture 200,000 customers from a lower-income segment in just one year. Before the acquisition, Bankinter had only 100,000 high-income customers. Now, they have a total of 1.5 million clients in Spain, including digital and multi-channel clients.

The bank now has a total of 2 million clients across Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The challenge now is to integrate these newly acquired clients and encourage them to use more of Bankinter's products. Currently, the average Bankinter customer holds six products, mostly in the form of investments and savings, such as investment funds, pension plans, and alternative investments.

These products come with high fees for the bank, resulting in a 16% increase in net commissions in the first half of the year, reaching 440 million euros. Despite not being the main revenue generator, the bank's assets under management, which include international business, have grown by 20% to 74.7 billion euros. Bankinter's revenue is heavily dependent on commissions from investment products, accounting for about a third of its total revenue of 1.603 billion euros up to June.

This high reliance on commissions has led to an impressive profitability of 20.4%, the highest among listed banks along with BBVA, which exceeds 22%. Recently, Bankinter launched a summer campaign targeting young customers, offering a 50 Euro incentive for opening a monthly ETF, ETC, or ETN plan and maintaining it for at least six months.

While Bankinter recognizes digital channels as an entry point for new clients, their overall strategy remains broad, with a focus on businesses and high-net-worth individuals as key drivers of their growth.