Bankinter will focus its growth strategy in the coming quarters on the business of companies and corporate banking in Spain, shifting the focus from mortgages, whose price has been pressured downwards by strong competition, according to CEO Gloria Ortiz.
In a presentation to analysts held this Thursday after the publication of the quarterly results, Ortiz pointed out that mortgages in Spain "continue to be below the cost of risk." He also pointed out that there is a "mismatch" between maturity terms and interest rate risk.
"We are allocating capital to geographies where we see profitable opportunities," the chief executive has underlined. In this regard, the entity will continue to strengthen its presence in Ireland, where it maintains double-digit growth in credit, with a 27% advance in mortgages, and in Portugal, a market in which it also detects room to continue growing at double-digit rates.
At the close of the first quarter, Bankinter registered a CET1 capital ratio, the highest quality, of 12.96%, that is, 61 basis points more than a year earlier and 24 points above the level reached at the end of 2025, placing itself around 4.5 percentage points above the minimum requirements set by the regulator.
Regarding the destination of that excess capital, beyond the organic needs of the business, Ortiz has specified that the entity does not plan to modify its shareholder remuneration policy "for now", which contemplates the distribution in cash of 50% of the net profit.
"If there is excess capital, obviously we will give it to the shareholders as we have done in the past," recalled the CEO, alluding to the fact that Línea Directa's stock market listing was structured as an extraordinary dividend.
Ortiz has explained that part of the foreseen progress in Ireland will be supported by the country's new competitive environment. A few weeks ago it was announced that the Austrian Bawag will be the buyer of the Irish PTSB, an operation that, according to Bankinter, represents a "great opportunity", since PTSB "needs a major restructuring".
"As we have seen in the past in Spain and also in Portugal, when a bank restructures, customers are not properly attended to and therefore, customer attrition is greater. So we are going to take advantage of that situation in the coming months," he stated.
In the Irish market, Bankinter currently offers mortgages and deposits, and the entity plans to expand its offering: the CEO has announced that they plan to launch a current account during the summer or shortly thereafter.
At the group level, the bank has indicated that it does not see "warning signs" in asset quality in any of its business segments. Even so, Ortiz has warned that some economic impact could arise from the geopolitical context, which is why Bankinter is showing itself to be "very cautious" in consumer credit in the "open market." Furthermore, it is opting to concentrate on SMEs with a turnover greater than 30 million euros and reduce its exposure to companies that earn less than two million annually.
Regarding the possible effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on cyber risks, the chief financial officer, Jacobo Díaz, has pointed out that this technology does not alter the nature of the threats, but rather their speed.
In his opinion, Mythos, Anthropic's new AI model, "does not represent a new category of risk, but rather an acceleration of existing cyber threats through AI." Faced with this scenario, Díaz believes that financial entities must incorporate AI into their security systems to accelerate and strengthen their own defense mechanisms.