Banco Etcheverría

Banco Etcheverría was a Spanish bank. The family-owned bank was the oldest in the Spanish financial system, and the 11th oldest surviving bank in the world, older by over half a century than the Bank of Spain itself. It was founded in Betanzos, A Coruña (Spain) in 1717 by Juan Etcheverry (née Jean d’Etcheverry), a French businessman and tannery owner who had settled in Galicia.

His family inherited and continued the bank business through generations; the primitive Etcheverry transformed the surname to Etcheverría to adapt to Spanish spelling (although the standard Spanish spelling is now Echeverría). The name comes from the Basque surname Etxeberria, meaning "new house". In 1964 it became a sociedad anónima. Its current stockholders (Francisco Javier, Asunción, María Cruz and Magdalena Etcheverría de la Muela) are all from the Etcheverría family, except the Caixa Galicia savings bank, which bought a 37.12% stake in 2002 for 13.25 million euros.[2]

It currently has offices in all four Galician provinces as well as in Madrid.[3] The bank has specialized in personal banking and wealth management.[4]

In December 2012, Venezuela's largest bank, Banesco, announced it has bought a majority stake in Banco Etcheverría by acquiring the 44.7% owned in the latter by nationalized Spanish bank Novagalicia Banco (NGB) as well as shares owned by the Etcheverría family.[5]

After Banesco's entry, the following table reflects the voting rights:

In 2014, the bank was acquired by NCG Banco.