Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is delighted to publish the twentieth edition of Spanish Banking Pulse (“The Pulse”) Q4 ’25. In this edition, we share results from our research examining 10 biggest Spanish banks (“top 10”) with regard to their activities within Spain and highlight key performance indicators of the Spanish banking industry.

The Pulse aims to help banking executives and board members stay current on industry trends. As trending topics, we include detailed analysis of the financial margin from the perspective of banks’ capital components

All the data used in this report has been obtained from publicly available sources. The methodology for all calculations is homogeneous and discussed in the glossary.

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Key trends:

• ROE stood at 17% at year‑end, representing an increase of 30 basis points compared with the previous year.
• Industry solvency improved by 58 basis points, with a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 13.3%.
• Asset quality strengthened, with the NPL ratio improving by approximately 50 basis points, driven by an aggregate reduction in doubtful loan portfolios. At the same time, the cost of risk declined by around 6 basis points, reaching 0.30%.
• Efficiency showed a slight improvement, reaching 38.9% in December 2025.
• In Alvarez & Marsal’s ranking, BBVA leads among large banks, while Kutxabank tops the mid‑sized banking segment.