When the Spanish government ratified the Canada-European

Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in December 2017, CaixaBank, S.A., moved quickly to help its customers take advantage of new opportunities in Canada.

Over the next year, the banking group studied Canada’s corporate and financial sectors and identified Toronto as an optimal location for its Canadian operation. By December 2018, the office was open for business, and the bank had two employees in place to run it. It was CaixaBank’s second North American location after New York, where it has operated since 2015.

“Toronto was the obvious option for our first representative office in Canada,” says Barbara Carmona Venancio, CaixaBank’s Chief Representative Officer, from her office on Bay Street, in the heart of the city’s financial district. “It’s the most populated city in Canada, the financial capital of the country and has the second-largest financial services sector in North America.”

Toronto made particular sense as

a location for the bank’s Canadian office, Carmona adds, because it allows immediate access to the headquarters of Canada’s five largest banks, more than 40 foreign banks and many large Canadian and multinational corporations, all of whom could benefit from and participate in the liberalized trading relationship between Canada and Spain.

Trade relations between Spain and Canada have become more dynamic than ever, making Canada an increasingly important trading partner for Spain. In 2017, Spanish exports to Canada grew by 10.5 per cent, while Spanish imports from Canada increased by 30 per cent, according to data from the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade.

“Canada offers significant benefits for Spanish companies,” says Carmona. “The ease of doing business here, its attractiveness for trade and its financial stability all make the country a market full of opportunity.”

In its home country, CaixaBank serves almost 16 million customers and has the most extensive branch

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“Trade relations between Spain and Canada have become more dynamic than ever, making Canada an increasingly important trading partner for Spain.”

CaixaBank

Barbara Carmona VenancioChief Representative Officer Caixabank S.A Representative Office in Canada

network in the Spanish market. From this solid base in the Spanish market and as the only Spanish bank with a physical presence in Canada, CaixaBank will offer support and advisory services in trade and corporate banking, catering to Spanish companies doing business in Canada and Canadian companies doing business in Spain.

“We aim to consolidate our position as a benchmark bank in Canada for companies operating in the two countries,” says Carmona. In particular, she says, Toronto presents opportunities for industrial, energy and environment, food and beverage, and technology companies.

If all goes according to plan, CaixaBank intends to add two new employees next year. To find them, the bank will turn to Toronto’s deep and experienced pool of talent in financial services. Since 2002, employment in Toronto’s financial services sector has grown by 34 per cent, making it the second-largest in North America by direct employment.

In setting up its Toronto office, the bank took advantage of support and advice offered by several local organizations, including Toronto Finance International, Toronto Global and the Ontario Government.

“Toronto Finance International offered its support to connect us with other institutions, and we collaborated in other aspects, as well,” says Carmona. “It was – and still is – of great help to us,

considering that we’re entering a whole new market.”

“We’ve never felt alone in the process,” she continues. “It’s not hard to see why the World Bank includes Canada among its list of the easiest countries in the world for doing business.”

For more information on TFI and Toronto’s financial services sector, please visit www.tfi.ca or call +1 416 933 6780

“Toronto was the obvious option for our first representative office in Canada.”

About CaixaBankCaixaBank is a financial group with a socially responsible, long-term universal banking model, based on quality, trust, and specialisation, which offers a value proposition of products and services adapted for each sector, adopting innovation as a strategic challenge and a distinguishing feature of its corporate culture, and whose leading position in retail banking in Spain and Portugal makes it a key player in supporting sustainable economic growth.

CaixaBank401 Bay Street, #1220, M5H 2Y4, Toronto, ON+1 647 326 2471 | caixabank.com