This challenge is very obvious in Spain, where people aged 65 and over already account for 20.4% of the population, and official projections suggest this will rise to around 30.5% by the mid-2050s. It is a demographic shift that is happening as digital adoption continues to surge: across the EU, 72% of internet users used online banking in 2024, up from 56% a decade earlier, European Commission data shows. In Spain, that number was closer to 75%, according to the country’s central bank.
The traditional banking model of a single, undifferentiated “mass retail” offering is not built for that world. But neither is a patchwork of brands that confuse customers and fragment the balance sheet. The strategic question for universal banks is how to segment sharply enough to matter for customers, while still delivering the scale, capital strength and trust that come with a single institution.
CaixaBank has tackled this issue by building a model that is domestically focused: “one bank, many life stages” from imagin, the Group’s neobank for younger customers, to Generación+, a new value proposition for seniors. In between the two, its entire offering extends throughout a customer’s life and different requirements, catering to the specific needs of customers that can be as different as the recently landed expat finding a second home in Spain, or the small company paving its way in the agro sector.
Demographic banking: A new approach for retail banking
Younger Europeans live their financial lives almost entirely on the smartphone. In Spain, around 67% of bank account holders manage their banking from mobile devices, driving up the amount of transactions carried out throughout 2025 to nearly five million mobile payment customers, according to CaixaBank’s data.
imagin, CaixaBank’s response to this shift, is a fully digital neobank aimed at a young, 100% mobile audience. Launched in 2016, it now has more than 3.9 million banking customers with around 600,000 number of users aged 12 to 17. Around half of CaixaBank’s new customers in the last year came via imagin, and the market share penetration of the CaixaBank and imagin brands is of 40% in Spain’s 16-34 segment, according to GfK data.
Imagin’s unique value proposition focuses on a complete range of banking products and services, unique among neobanks, designed to meet and adapt to all the financial needs and decisions of young people. The catalogue includes accounts, payment services and fee-free cards that simplify young users’ day-to-day financial activity. In addition, imagin provides a wide range of financing products, such as mortgages and loans, and investment options, including funds and a stock trading broker. All of this is delivered through a mobile-only experience, which has defined imagin since its launch in 2016.
The lesson drawn is not that every bank should launch a youth brand. It is that if they do, it has to be built as a complete banking proposition rather than a marketing front-end. imagin has evolved from a lifestyle app into a full product suite including mortgages and investment funds, with onboarding, servicing and advice all delivered digitally.
For a universal bank, the strategic benefit is two-way. It gains access to a demographic that might otherwise be captured by fintechs, and those customers still sit on the same core balance sheet, risk framework and governance as the rest of the group. For the customer, the experience feels as nimble as any standalone fintech, but with the reassurance that deposits are held with Spain’s largest domestic bank.
The needs of the younger population are balanced by demographic ageing. Across the EU, the old-age dependency ratio (the number of people aged 65+ relative to those aged 20–64) has risen from 26.8% in 2004 to 37.0% in 2024. In Spain specifically, seniors already represent over one-fifth of the population, and their share is set to rise steadily.
For banks, this is often seen as a negative, with worries around financial exclusion as branches shut and older customers show resistance to digital platforms. Those risks are real. But for CaixaBank, those customers are as key as any other and present an opportunity for growth and innovation within the business.
CaixaBank today has more than four million customers aged 65 and over, and more than a 34% share of pensions paid by direct debit. To treat that segment with the same strategic importance given to young digital customers, Generación + was created.
Launched in 2025, Generación + is a comprehensive proposition for older clients that combines retirement planning, long-term savings and insurance products with services that help turn illiquid housing wealth into income. It goes beyond financial wellbeing, providing a curated marketplace of specialised advice, care, mobility, home adaptation and leisure services.
Banks that treat older customers as marginal will struggle to defend market share as the age pyramid shifts. Those that treat seniors as a core strategic segment, with tailored economics, products and service models, will not only do better commercially but will also deliver improved service quality for its customers.
Generation + strengthens CaixaBank’s product and service offerings for senior customers and future planning, to support the growing elderly population in Spain. A commitment aligned with the Group’s purpose of standing by people for everything that matters.
One balance sheet, many journeys
What connects imagin and Generación+ is not branding; it is the idea that a universal bank must be capable of offering radically different customer journeys on a common platform. For a young customer whose first interaction with a bank is via a digital lifestyle app, the relationship may stay almost entirely mobile for years. For an older customer, it may begin in a branch or a mobile office, with a human adviser helping them navigate the transition into retirement and long-term care.
Underneath, though, these journeys rely on shared infrastructure: the same risk standards, cyber-security, capital base and compliance framework. That matters to supervisors and investors. It also matters to customers who expect their “cool” neobank account and their “traditional” pension plan to be underpinned by the same safety and robustness.
The balance between in-person and digital channels, between specialised brands and the core franchise, will continue to evolve as technology and demographics shift. But if there is one lesson from Spain’s largest bank’s experience so far, it is that hyper-segmentation in retail banking works best when it is treated as a core strategy, not as a set of disconnected experiments.
To meet this goal, the bank is doing more than rolling out these value propositions. Throughout its 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, it will recruit 3,000 individuals under 35 to help foster innovation within their workforce and is training more than 30,000 employees to enhance customer service during all interactions.
For Europe’s banks, whatever strategy they pursue, they need to find a way to respond to a continent that is simultaneously getting younger on the screen and older on the street.
