Spain: Giving savings banks a good name

Savings banks have a bad name in some financial circles. The term “savings bank” tends to conjure up images of small, cossetted institutions run poorly by interfering politicians and university chairmen that make life unfairly difficult for honest, hard-working commercial banks. The truth, however, is simply that when it comes to trying to understand and compare banking systems across Europe, “savings bank” is about as useful a term as hedge fund.