Facultad de Económicas y CC Empresariales

In 1962, the Ley de Bases para la Ordenación del Crédito y de la Banca (LBOCB) was passed, which sought, at least theoretically, to introduce greater competition in the Spanish banking sector. After more than a century, the banking sector was forced to specialize and to choose between the provision of commercial services (the raising of short-term deposits and loans and discounting of bills) or the financing of industrial activities (typical of industrial banking). The sector, characterized by the presence of a multitude of small and medium-sized banks, presented oligopolistic features as more than 80% of the resources were in the hands of the large national banks. The aim of this paper is to characterize the activity of Spanish banks in 1955 and 1965. By means of a multicriteria analysis, a classification of the banks according to different parameters is proposed, with the aim of contrasting whether the banking strategy was similar or not. This work is framed in the tradition of the New Economic History or Cliometrics developed in the 70's of the 20th century, characterized by the interconnection of mathematics, economics, and statistics in the historical analysis.

In this research, a new approach for the classification of cooperative banks is presented by using a multi-criteria analysis in order to combine financial and economic variables with social ones. Both type of variables are indispensable and can be joined due to the unique characteristics of these financial entities with social performance. The sample is formed with the cooperative banks registered in Spain. The results show a new ranking that allows us to study the existing relation between different variables of an entity and the fulfilment of its original social purpose, as a special type of banking activity. Furthermore, the obtained ranking supports the hypothesis that the concentration in this sector, due to the financial crisis from 2009 until now, has not followed economic or social criteria. Hence, there is a lack of homogeneity in its business model as we can see in the present situation. And this leads to the failure of some of these convergence processes that, in some cases, lead to an inevitable bankruptcy.