The municipality of Baix Llobregat has one branch for every 6,000 people, a ratio that almost doubles the metropolitan average: one for every 3,400
Since 2015, around twenty offices have closed in the city, a situation that has upset both the City Council and the residents
Viladecans (Baix Llobregat) is the large city of the Barcelona metropolitan area with more than 50,000 inhabitants (about 66,700, specifically) that currently registers a higher ratio between the bank offices registered in the municipality and the amount of population to which potentially offer service.
According to data from Bank of Spain, From 2015 to 2021, the city has gone from having 29 registered bank branches to currently having 11, which represents a 62% drop, the most aggravated of metropolitan cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.
The data also shows that, in relation to the population of the municipality, each of these offices potentially serves about 6,000 people, a ratio that practically double the metropolitan average (one branch for every 3,400 people) and which allows us to conclude that, if in 2015 Viladecans had one branch for every 2,300 inhabitants, today each branch is practically assigned triple the population.
From the Forum of Local Greuges of Cataloniawhich has underlined the difficulties that the closure of bank branches presents for citizens in its report ‘Digitization and Rights of Citizenship‘, confirm that the Ombudsman of Greuges de Viladecans has been the local defender of the area of the Forum that more emphasis has been in the phenomenon lately.
“The reduction of offices worries us”
Consulted by the progressive fall of bank branches in the municipality, sources of the Viladecans Town Hall they recognize themselves in turmoil: “The trend worries us, since it is causing inconvenience people and the life of the city”, they point out, emphasizing the mobility difficulties that they have the old people to move “in search of offices that are no longer in their neighborhoods”.
From the council, also concerned about the fate of the old offices, “whose dimensions make other uses difficult and remain closed at the risk of being illegally occupied“, they claim to have addressed “several heads of banking entities” to express “discomfort”. In that sense, the Municipal plenary session of Viladecans expressed in December 2021 its unanimous support for the Consell Consultiu de Gent Gran del Baix Llobregatas long as “entities attend citizens in person and help them in digital processes”.
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The banking sector, for its part, wields the commitment to improve service to the elderly in branches. “The commitment of the banks is extend the hours face-to-face attention and reinforce personalized attention to old people and with disabilities”, say sources from the Spanish Banking Association (AEB), banking employer that group the banks with greater territorial implantation in the State: Caixabank, Santander, Sabadell and BBVA.
The fall of offices in Baix Llobregat
Although Viladecans is the municipality of Baix Llobregat where the trend is most marked, it is by no means an isolated case. The cities with which it shares a region, especially Sant Boi de Llobregat and Cornellà de Llobregat, also register important variations between 2015 and 2021. Thus, Sant Boi it has lost during these years 54.8% of its offices (from 42 to 19); Cornella it has suffered the closure of 52.6% of branches (from 57 to 27); Castelldefels it has suffered a 50% closure (from 28 to 14); and in Gavà 45.8% of registered offices have been closed (from 24 to 13). In terms of the ratio of inhabitants per branch, all the cities in the region are below Viladecans, being Castelldefels the great city of Baix Llobregat that follows it, with an office every 4,800 inhabitants.
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