Ethical banks in Spain record, according to the latest Barómetro de las Finanzas Éticas more customers, stable deposits and a strong focus on housing in their lending. According to reports on 15 October 2026, the institutions together have almost 200,000 customers. Savings, it says, have consolidated at around 2.4 billion euros and about 30 per cent of lending volume goes to housing. The immediate occasion is the publication of the new edition of the Barómetro, which elDiario.es refers to.
The Barómetro is published by the Observatorio de las Finanzas Éticas of the organisation FETS – Finançament Ètic i Solidari. The report covers Spain’s ethical and solidarity-based financial institutions sector and measures its development against transparent, verifiable criteria such as impact on the real economy, exclusion of projects involving human rights risks, and traceability of how funds are used. According to the account, the prolonged downturn between 2017 and 2022 has been overcome; customer numbers have risen again, most recently by around 3.6 per cent.
Key findings concern the allocation of loans. Housing finance accounts for about 30 per cent. This shows that ethical institutions not only support social and environmental projects, but also play a visible role in financing housing. The reports do not provide details of the share of affordable or social housing projects within this figure, so this remains an open question for policymakers and regulators to examine.
Deposits of around 2.4 billion euros indicate overall stability. At the same time, reports note that ethical banks are, on average, well-capitalised and comparable with conventional providers in terms of profitability. These descriptions apply to the sector; reliable conclusions about longer-term earnings trends would, however, require analysis of time series spanning several reporting years and comparison with the wider banking market.
Two regulatory questions arise: first, whether the observed shift towards housing finance has structural effects on social objectives. Second, to what extent the transparency and impact criteria documented in the Barómetro could become market norms. What is clear is that the sector remains small compared with the Spanish banking market as a whole, but its figures and methods appear stable and transparent. The Barómetro de las Finanzas Éticas brings this information together in an annual overview, providing a reliable point of reference for future assessments.
Editor: Daniel Mayer (Article created with AI assistance).