Caja Madrid
 |
|
| Bank | |
| Industry | Financial services and Insurance |
| Founded | December 3, 1702 |
| Headquarters | Madrid, Spain |
|
Key people
|
Rodrigo Rato (President) |
| Products |
Consumer Banking Corporate Banking |
| € 622.3 million (2009) | |
|
Number of employees
|
15,279 (2009) |
| Website | http://www.obracaja.es/ |
Caja Madrid, formally the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid, headquartered in Madrid, is the oldest of the Spanish savings banks. It was founded on 3 December 1702, as Monte de Piedad de Madrid by Francisco Piquer, an Aragonese priest. Caja Madrid is the regional-owned bank of the Community of Madrid (Comunidad de Madrid).
On 30 July 2010, Caja Madrid signed an agreement to merge with six other savings banks to form Bankia on 3 December 2010. Caja Madrid held a 52.6 percent controlling interest in the new company.
The Monte de Piedad de Madrid was the first Spanish Monte di Pietà, following a pattern that had been started in fifteenth-century Italy. These institutions were organised and operated as a charity by Christians, and offered financial loans at a moderate interest rate to those in need. The money lent out was from a fund built up by voluntary donations from financially privileged people who had no intentions of regaining their money.
The people in need would then be able to come to the Monte di Pietà and give an item of value in exchange for a monetary loan. The term of the loan would last the course of a year and would only be worth about two-thirds of the borrower’s item value. A pre-determined interest rate would be applied to the loan and these profits were used to pay the expenses of operating the Monte di Pietà. Such organizations spread throughout the continent of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, a credit to the preaching of Franciscans and their condemnation of usury.
The Montes de Piedad appeared in Spain when Francisco de Piquer y Rodilla founded the Monte de Piedad de Madrid in 1702 by depositing a silver Spanish real in a box as the beginning of a fund to which he gave the name, Nuestra Señora del Santo Monte de Piedad de las Ánimas . It was intended that the fund would be augmented by the donations of the faithful who wished to ease the suffering of the souls of their relatives who were in purgatory by providing donations that could be used as loans to ease the suffering of the needy in this life.
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Wikipedia