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Caja de Ahorros de Navarra or Caja Navarra or CAN is a medium sized savings bank based in the Navarra region of northern Spain with its headquarters in Pamplona. The bank, in its current form, results from the merger of the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad Municipal de Pamplona (founded by the Pamplona city council in 1872) and the Caja de Ahorros de Navarra (founded by the Provincial Council of Navarre in 1921) on January 17, 2000.

In Spain, savings banks or cajas are private financial institutions organized as foundations. When they were first created, their main identifying features are their concern for saving, focus on the poorer classes, concentration in a geographical area, and allocation of a significant part of their profits to social and charity projects .. Today their commitment to the community continues. These savings banks devote a percentage of their resources to charity and community projects, in CAN´s case 30 percent. Caja Navarra is known for its unique Civic Banking model, developed under current CEO Enrique Goñi.

Civic Banking
Civic Banking is a very innovative form of banking, something that may initially sound like an oxymoron. As a model, Civic Banking has sought to turn traditional banking on its head by placing the customer at the center of its business practices and ascribing them rights, while creating duties for Caja Navarra itself to follow. The five rights of Civic Banking are: 1. Social Project Work(allowing the customer to choose where CAN donates their money). 2. The Civic Account (knowing how much CAN makes from your money). 3. Project Accountability (understanding how the social projects are doing). 4. Volcan (Becoming a volunteer at the projects you support). 5. Know Where Your Savings are Invested (learning what CAN does with your money, and deciding where it should be invested).

Civic Banking and its main program entitled “You Choose: You Decide” (encompassed in the 1st right of Civic Banking) or “Tu Eliges: Tu Decides” in Spanish has made the bank´s customers responsible for deciding which social ventures the bank should invest in and donate money to. Cajas do not have official share holders like a publicly owned commercial bank. Civic Banking has sought to incorporate the bank´s customers in a way that shareholders would be incorporated in a publicly traded company – by giving them the decision making power and thus making them feel more attached to the bank.

Officially started in 2004, “You Choose, You Decide” identified nine groups of social projects: disability and welfare, research, cooperation, environment, employment and entrepreneurs, culture, preservation of heritage, sports and leisure. Then, each time a customer contracted a product or service from Caja Navarra they would choose where the profits were spent in an effort to make the customer feel more in touch with the bank and with the community. This is very different from the other Spanish cajas, who choose their social projects and monetary allocation through dedicated boards. Thus in 2005, for the first time, 100 percent of 2005´s social budget was decided by CAN´s customers. The program was a great success with 82% of the banks customers choosing where to allocate their money in the first year alone.

Since 2004 CAN has continued to innovate within their civic banking platform. These innovations include reporting to customers in an individualized document exactly how much money they make from the customer. The nine broad categories of social projects have now been expanded into over 2500 individual projects for the customer to choose from. In addition customers can propose their own social projects to add to the current list of over 2500 if they cannot find one they identify with. Caja Navarra also encourages its customers to participate in the social ventures they support.

In accordance with the five rights, Civic Banking works by creating networks, first for the social projects to reach out to bank customers. Second the customer networks with the community by choosing their favorite projects. And finally, the customers network with the projects themselves, by participating in them, and encouraging others to participate.

Canchas
Civic Banking´s innovation has also transformed the idea of the bank branch. Branches, known as Canchas at Caja Navarra, are normally a place to go to contract bank services. However, in keeping with their idea of growing customer loyalty and participation, Caja Navarra has transformed their branches into open community spaces. Among other things, branches have features which include play areas for children, internet access available to the public, free coffee and at various times live entertainment.

Caja Navarra Today
The results of Civic Banking have been staggering with more than 80% of customers choosing where their money is spent each year. Between 2002 and 2006 CAN´s business customers increased from 120 to nearly 800. Between 2001 and 2007 Caja Navarra moved from 22nd to 17th in terms of volume among other Spanish savings banks, from 20th to 12th in profit after tax, from 16th to 5th in margin per employee and from 41st to 4th in ROE.

Nothing quite like the Civic Banking model is in place anywhere around the world; this has been acknowledged by many of the world´s top universities incuding: Georgetown University, New York University Stern School of Business, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, IESE and the Instituto Pamamericano de Alta Dirección de Empresa - all of which have demonstrated substantial interest and have started to study the relatively small bank. Currently Caja Navarra is seeking to expand internationally into Eastern Europe. Though many experts argue that it is unlikely that this transparent model of business and social responsibility will be adopted by commercial banks, Caja Navarra is truly a leader in industry innovation and its success is visible through customer satisfaction as well as numerical increases on its balance sheet. The bank continues its ambitious growth and innovation, and seeks to double its 2007 deposits by 2010 to an estimated 19.5 billion euro. By 2010, the bank also seeks to open 100 new branches and increase the number of participants in the You Choose You Decide program to 700,000.