CaixaBank announces plans to harness genAI as part of €5bn tech investment

CaixaBank has revealed it will harness generative AI (genAI) as part of a wider €5 billion technology investment over the next three years.

It said that the funding, which forms part of a wider strategy for the Spanish bank, would enable the organisation to improve commercial and service capabilities through genAI, while its channels and infrastructure will also be upgraded as part of the plans.

The bank’s new 2025-2027 strategic plan aims to ensure sustainable levels of profitability above 15 per cent to boost the growth of loans to companies and households, which is expected to increase by a four per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period.

“In the next three years, we want to take advantage of a more favourable economic environment to take a leap forward in our service quality, in our technological capabilities and in the development of our workforce’s talent,” said CaixaBank chief executive Gonzalo Gortázar. “All of this will result in greater growth of the economy and adequate remuneration for our shareholders”.

CaixaBank said that to roll out its transformation plans, it is necessary to attract new talent, which is why it is planning to recruit 3,000 young people over the three year period, most of them with technical skills.

The bank also said it needs to attract and engage customers through “improved value propositions” in order to deliver growth, with the company planning to increase digital sales through the launch of new products and services.

At the end of last year, CaixaBank announced it had put together a multi-disciplinary team of over 100 people to explore the use of genAI for internal and customer-related processes.

The team, which is from different departments based in Barcelona and Madrid, looks at potential use cases for the technology to streamline its processes and improve experiences for both customers and employees.

At the time, the Valencia-based bank used its existing partnership with Microsoft, launched in 2014, to gain access to AI models which are currently in testing phase and not yet available to the wider market.