Very good morning, dear shareholders. I'd like to welcome you all here on my behalf and on behalf of the board of directors of this general shareholders' meeting of CaixaBank, held at the conference hall in Valencia. First of all, I would like to say thank you to all of you who are here with us in the room, those who are following us on the internet remotely. According to our articles, associations, and the regulation of the general meeting of CaixaBank, the board of directors has made it possible as well the remote attendance to this meeting to the shareholders, both remotely and on real-time, so you can have all your rights following the procedures on the call. Notwithstanding this, shareholders can also have the rights of information, delegations, and distant voting previously to this meeting.
I would like to say to you that Bureau Veritas has audited and certified this general meeting as a sustainable event aligned with the SDGs, as you can see in the document that is being published in our website on the tab of our general meeting for 2023. This general meeting has been convened for the approval, if possible, of the annual accounts of 2022 and the rest of resolutions that you will find in the agenda. Mr. Secretary will now tell us about the data of the notice call and the attendance date. I give the floor to our secretary.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. The covenant of this general meeting was published in our website, also in the website of the National Securities Market Commission, also in the newspaper Levante, in the Register of Companies in February 21st in 2023. Since then, we have all that information on the website regarding the agenda for today, as is established in the Spanish Companies Act. Every shareholders have been able to see at the headquarters all the documents that are going to be used today according with the act. Since the February 24th 2023, we have been publishing nonstop all the information in our website. Please be informed that in several points in this room, you will have some QR codes and some free access to internet, you can access all the documents we are going to mention during this meeting.
It is also published on our website as well. If you need a copy, you can ask for it. Let me take advantage of this moment to say that all the shareholders and the shareholders' representative here and remotely will have the possibility to speak and asking for any data or for any information they might want, as per following our regulation. All the shareholders and representatives on the room can go to the table with panels saying speaking time, and there you can leave your data, and you can say what you want to state. If you want for your intervention to be on the record, you have to say so. If you want it to be literally transcripted, you have to give it in written, so the notary public can really check it when you speak.
As we said before, let me remind to the shareholders and those representatives on this room that the time for the interventions is five minutes, following the regulations of a general meeting. As it's been informed on the notice, on the notice of call, we are streaming this general meeting, so there might be some images of the people attending this general meeting. On the other hand, those speakers during the meeting that doesn't want their image to be streaming, they can say so when they are asking for their intervention, so it won't be recorded and their image won't be in streaming.
If any of the people here has any mobility difficulties, please tell any of the organizational staff we have here, and they will help you, because we have done everything in our hands to make it easy for anyone to access. Remind to those people who are remotely participating in this meeting that they have to send their questions in writing through the through our website. There's a special place there to do that. Until the speaker's turn is closed, which we will advise during the meeting as well. We have all the regulations regarding the participation, the remote participation. Anything you write will have a maximum of 7,500 signs. It's more or less regarding to a five-minute intervention.
All the people who are attending remotely will have more or less the same time that the people who are here. In case of those shareholders who are connected through the platform and they want their participation to be on record, they have to say so when they write it. Any requests for information from the shareholders, both remotely and on-site, will receive a reply here today or during the seven days after this meeting. Regarding the voting of the resolution, votes in favor will be of every shareholder that are here at this meeting, whether they are here on-site or remotely, and of all of them who don't say explicitly that they are voting against or they are doing an abstention.
If you want to vote against or if you want to abstain from voting, please go to the table in the back of the room and make your vote there. Cast your vote there. You can go there any time during the meeting until we finish the time for the request of votings. I will plead to all the shareholders, both on-site and remotely, who want to vote any resolutions on the agenda that haven't done this. Please do that on the platform during the meeting until the moment we say that there is no more time to vote. After reading a brief summary of all the resolutions, and once the votes have been cast, the president will say that if we have any approval and the number of vote, and if we have the favorable votes needed.
Notwithstanding all the results of the voting that we will be published in our website following the Corporate Act, and that will be written on the minutes of this meeting. Any shareholders that are assisting through the platform remotely, and if they leave the general meeting without voting, and they want to state that they are leaving the meeting, so their vote is not counted as a favor vote, as a yes vote, they have to advise so, and they will have to tell us, and there are mechanisms for doing so in the platform of our website.
Let me remind you that once you have cast a vote, we cannot change it, and you cannot make new acts. Before reading the dates, the data of attendance, please, if the i f we have an issue with the internet and we cannot work remotely, we will interrupt the general meeting, and then we will reconvene it when we have again internet working for everyone. In any case, all the information will be on the website and for everyone there.
As per the last provisional data we have when we have begin the meeting, we have the following attendance, both for on-site and remote members and shareholders at the room. We have people at the room and those who have voted prior before this meeting. The provisional quorum of attendance, we have 3,364 shareholders holding 38,500 and some million action, which is a 51%... 31%... 33% of the shareholder with one, which is 25% of the share capital.
We have 16,562 shareholders here, which represent 76% of the share capital. As the general meeting is being held on the second call, as we declare fully and validate, constitute this meeting in the second call following the regulations, following also the articles of association, and following the Spanish Companies Act, and that with the definitive quorums, which will be read later on, and they will be published in our website in five days after this general meeting, and it will be fully stated in the minutes done by the notary. Following the regulation of this general meeting, let me tell you that on this table we have today, me as the President of the Board Administration, and Mr. Óscar Calderón de Oya, Secretary of the Board, acting as President and Secretary.
In this table, all the members of the Board of Directors and Mr. John Reed is remotely attending this meeting by video conference. As we have in the call of this general meeting and following the Spanish corporate law and the regulation of our general meeting, the Board of Director has requested a Notary Public to do the minutes of the meetings, and we have the Notary Public of Valencia Mr. Alfonso Maldonado Rubio. Mr. Notary, you have the floor. Following the Spanish corporate regulation, I ask if any of the shareholders have any issue regarding the number of shareholders, the number of shares represented and the capital who's here today.
If anyone wants to just say anything against this or the list of attendance, please do send it in writing, sending an email to the following email address, lista.asistentes.junta@caixabank.com, and it will be included in the minutes of the meetings. Every shareholder who is in this room can just go to the table at the back of the room with the official note saying, "Notary." It's on the right-hand side of the room. Thank you very much, Mr. Notary. Let me tell you the report.
Buen día. Good morning, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, buen día. First of all, I would like to thank you once again for attending this ordinary general meeting of shareholders, both those of you who are attending in person and those who are following us online. At this, my third general meeting, I would like to divide my presentation into three sections.
The first one, let me tell you about 2022. I will talk to you about the priorities of our strategic plan, which should act as our guide during the period 2022-2024. I will share with you some brief conclusion. Following my presentation, our CEO will discuss in depth the trends in our business and the financial statements of the year, which we are presenting for your consideration. One year ago, at our last annual general meeting, I explained to you all how the invasion of Ukraine had brought a radical change in the scenario. The truth is that in 2022, the reality of the situation of the Western world underwent a profound transformation, both in geopolitical and also in economic terms. From this economic perspective, countries in the West now are facing low levels of growth.
It is true that expectations have improved somewhat in the recent months, levels of inflation like we haven't seen for the last 40 years, and debt levels that have been growing consistently over the past decade as a result of the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine. The central banks, which initially saw that upturn in inflation as temporary, has been forced to make very sharp interest rate hikes. Interest rates are not at historically high levels in absolute terms, it is true that in relative terms, we haven't seen such rapid increases since the Volcker era in the United States in the mid 80s. This has been, in the markets, forcing investors to realign their positions.
This, together with the obvious uncertainties arising from the invasion of Ukraine, means that we are witnessing enormous volatility in the markets, which has been further aggravated by the recent events in United States and Switzerland. These events are taking place in banks with a situation and a business model that are very different from those of the Spanish banks and, of course, very different from CaixaBank. I don't have much time, so I can't go into a detailed analysis of these differences, but the key facts are follows. For instance, a huge concentration of the Silicon Valley banks. The deposits of the Spanish banks tend to have a widespread deposits. Our investments are extremely diversified because we serve all markets, from large corporations to households. Our ratios, as we'll see in more detail later, are extremely robust in terms of liquidity and solvency.
The big differences in terms of regulation and supervision between the United States and the Eurozone has once again been clearly demonstrated. In the case of Credit Suisse, which has already been showing signs of weakness for some time and finally will be integrated with UBS, the market was surprised by the favorable treatment given to shareholders as opposed to bondholders of AT1 debt. This led to severe turbulence in the bond markets. In this respect, I believe the joint communication by the European supervisors clarifying that the Eurozone's legal and regulatory framework does not accommodate such decisions.
This is instability for different reasons and with different actors, was repeated last week. Episodes of volatility may continue and we must always be prudent, I honestly believe that the Spanish banks, in contrast to what we have experienced in the previous crisis, are very well prepared and are more than strong enough to handle this type of situation. That said, in my view, all the financial turbulence we're witnessing once again underline the need to complete the European Banking Union. I believe it is crucial to speed up the creation of the European Deposit Guarantee Fund as a means to avoid any feedback loop between bank risk and sovereign risk, which is the ultimate objective of the union. Turning now to the Spanish situation, it's undeniable that our economy has shown much greater strength than we anticipated at the beginning of the year.
Although clearly slowing down, the forecasts for 2023 are also less pessimistic than the one we had a few months ago. In fact, the projection produced by our research department had been revised upwards in recent weeks, predicting GDP growth in the order of 1.3%. By contrast, inflation is proving more resilient, especially underlying inflation, which ended in the year at 7% in Spain. Despite the data we had yesterday, the evolution of inflation, both for Spain and for the Union, is the main challenge for the next months. We predict that in Spain, an annual average headline rate of 4.2% for Spain with underlying inflation still above these levels. Developments in inflation will undoubtedly be key to the ECB's policymaking, whose decisions have become more complex and difficult as a result of the recent financial turmoil.
This week, the market, which is highly volatile, is predicting an ECB deposit rate of 3.25%, which would result in the EURIBOR peaking at around 3.5% in the second and third quarters of the year. This level of rates is consistent with the GDP growth forecasts that I mentioned earlier. Having said this, looking in the medium and long term, I believe that we must keep a close eye on the challenges facing the Spanish economy. I always believe that the great weakness in the Spanish economy is productivity, while its biggest vulnerability is the imbalance of the public accounts.
After the effort made during the pandemic, Spain still has a very high debt to GDP ratio, very high, and a structural deficit close to 4%, which moreover, has not been corrected at any time in the last decade. This situation is also occurring in an environment in which the interest rates are now getting back to normal levels after the exceptional conditions of recent years. There will also be a return to fiscal discipline as a part of a stabilization pact at European level. As the governor of the Bank of Spain has repeatedly pointed out, all this makes it very necessary to define a plan to bring our public accounts back on track. Productivity is, in my opinion, the main weakness of the Spanish economy. Chronic low productivity that can only be tackled with supply-oriented policies.
Supply-oriented policies are synonymous with reform. Reforms that are complex because they require broad political and social agreements. These may currently seem difficult to achieve, but they are nonetheless necessary for the future of our country. They are really crucial to improve the living of the Spanish citizens. Within this difficult environment, 2022 has been a very important year for CaixaBank. First of all, because we successfully completed the largest integration ever undertaken in the Spanish banking sector, and we managed to complete this internal transformation, whilst continuing to focus on our business, we remained very strong commercially and managed our asset quality and balance sheet remarkably well, both in Spain and at BPI in Portugal. Thanks to the hard work of the entire team, we achieved attributable profit of EUR 3,145 million.
This represents an improvement of 29.7% compared with last year. As a result of the extraordinary impacts associated with the Bankia merger, which were included in the previous year's account, our accounting profit fell by 39.8%. We therefore achieve a return on equity of 9.8%, the highest number for the past 10 years, although still below the cost of equity capital. Our capital and liquidity position are very strong, with a CET1 capital adequacy ratio of 12.8% and a liquidity ratio of 194. This is undoubtedly an excellent position from which to handle the current uncertain scenario. I won't analyze these figures because our CEO will do so in great detail later on.
I would, however, like to point out that these results, together with our strong capital position, have led the board of directors to propose for this general meeting to approve the distribution of a gross dividend per share of EUR 0.23, 58% higher than the previous financial year. If approved by yourself, the shareholders, will be paid out in April. With the payment of this dividend, the shareholder distribution for the financial year of 2022 will total EUR 1,730 million, equivalent to 55% of attributable profit, in line with the dividend policy agreed by the board for 2022. This policy consists of a cash payout between 50% and 60% of the consolidated net profit, and it's applicable for 2023.
During the last seven months of 2022, from May to December, our bank implemented a share buyback program totaling EUR 1.8 billion, following the decision reached by the board of directors last May, and in accordance with the agreements adopted by the general meeting. All of these proposals, ladies and gentlemen, are aimed at improving the shareholder distribution you will all receive. In addition to this distribution, our share price has also performed well. Since the beginning of 2022 until yesterday closed, our share has been appreciated by 51%, which compares very favorably with the IBEX, which increased 6%, or with the EURO STOXX Banks, which did so by 2%.
If we are to broaden our time horizon, the price of the share has doubled. I shall now move on to the second part of my presentation, in which I will explain our main strategic priorities for the coming years. In last year's meeting, I told you all, ladies and gentlemen, that the ultimate goal of our merger was to become leaders in the transformation of the financial sector, and we want to do so with a differentiated banking model, one that is very inclusive and close to households and businesses. With that in mind, last May, we launched our first strategic plan following the merger with the slogan, "Close to our customers." We reinforce the commitment by launching last October our new brand proposition, "Standing by people for everything that matters," which shall become a guideline to us for the next three years.
During that period, 2022-2024, our strategic priorities will focus on, one, giving a boost to our business, growing beyond barriers in traditional banking. two, at the same time, we shall adapt our model of service to new needs with our customers, so that we can continue providing them with excellent service quality. All that with an aim of becoming a European benchmark for sustainability. These strategic priorities should help us achieve our financial targets by the end of 2024. These are the priorities: our return on equity over 12%, improving our efficiency so that it falls below 48%, and at the same time, we will continue consolidating our strong position in capital and solvency, sorry, with a view to generating capital available to distribute the value of EUR 9 billion over this period.
The goals are certainly ambitious, but following this year's results, we are on the right track. The targets were set last year in May, before the new special bank levy was announced. To achieve all that, at CaixaBank, we have a differentiated model of banking, one that is inclusive and close to society. A model that assumes that the sustainability of a project is not only based on financial results, but also on how they are achieved. Because a project or a company will only be sustainable over time if society finds them useful. In other words, only if it serves its social function. In that closeness model, sustainability has a triple aim. First, we are committed to the environment. Second, we need to have excellent governance. Finally, we need to be absolutely aware of society and include society. Let's start with our commitment to the environment.
Our strategic goal in this respect is to make a decisive contribution to energy transition in our economy, which means targeting different areas. In our strategic plan, we became committed to mobilizing financing for projects, sustainable projects, totaling EUR 64 billion. We are on track. The first year, we already managed to cover 30% of that amount, with more than EUR 23.6 billion mobilized for sustainable projects. As for our debt issued, 54% of our issuances were rated as sustainable. Furthermore, we are ever so pleased to be the leaders in financing green loans and to be ranked third in sustainable finance by the EMEA. We are indeed fulfilling all the goals set. The second vector is our ongoing pursuit of excellence in our corporate governance. I firmly believe that excellent corporate governance is a must for a project to be sustainable.
I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that you do have an excellent board with excellent, brilliant CVs and vast experience. 60% of the board are independent directors. 44% is made up of women with great professional records. We have achieved to be certified for a good corporate governance, as issued by AENOR, obtaining the highest rating. Our aim is to maintain such high standards. Before concluding this part of my talk, I would like to refer to some changes in the board of directors following the resignation of Mr. John Reed as a member, seeing he was coming to the end of the recommended maximum term of 12 years as an independent director, so he obviously submitted his resignation.
On behalf of the board, and on my own behalf, I would like to thank Mr. John Reed for his excellent work as director in CaixaBank, holding the position in the past three years of Coordinating Director. For time reasons, I cannot go into detail as for his contributions, but let me make it clear his contributions were definitely huge value. This is obviously a result of his huge knowledge and experience, his good judgment. Mr. Reed has been a role model to all of us and very, very helpful to me as a Chairman.
On my name, and on behalf of the entire board, I would like to congratulate him on his performance and commitment to CaixaBank. I would like to welcome Peter Löscher, who will take over as an independent director, replacing Mr. John Reed, should you approve that, ladies and gentlemen, and once we have been given regulatory approval. As you shall see in Mr. Löscher's curriculum, that he has a long professional career. If you so decide, I have no doubt Mr. Löscher will certainly contribute to the good work of this board of directors.
Finally, the third factor for sustainability, apart for supporting climate change, transformation and excellence governance, is based on our commitment to society. This meaning a commitment to inclusion and social action. As I said earlier, our goal is to be very close to the society we serve. This is not words, this is deeds. Deeds is something that we feel very strongly about. It's part of our DNA at CaixaBank. This commitment to being close to society is expressed through our commitment to inclusion in terms of geography, also in terms of age, thirdly, inclusion in terms of vulnerability, and finally, in terms of our commitment to education. Let me begin with geographical inclusion.
Our service model combines large physical presence and development of online channels. We have the most extensive branch network in our country, we are present in more than 2,200 towns, and in 470 of them, we are the only bank. Besides, we will live up to our promise not to abandon those towns. We combine that physical network with excellent online channels for the benefit of more than 11 million customers, as well as remote channels serving 3.4 million clients. From the point of view of senior citizen inclusion, last year, we demonstrated our commitment by means of 10 specific measures. Today, I'm pleased to say that we did implement all those measures in a timely fashion. Concerning vulnerability and our commitment to overcoming such obstacles, I shall first mention MicroBank.
The largest microfinance bank in Europe, it is intended to finance both vulnerable families and small businesses. Since it started operating, MicroBank supported 1.5 million people and households. In 2022, we supported 82,000 families and 13,000 small businesses. Another aspect I would like to underline is that of social housing. We currently have more than 11,500 homes with a subsidized rent. We also have another line of action, namely Dualiza or Dualiza Foundation. In fact, it was one of the first foundations to focus on promoting vocational studies. It has now become a benchmark for information and research into vocational training in Spain. Last year alone, we supported 7,000 students to help them gain access to this type of education.
At the same time, I would like to remind you that our dividends do finance the extraordinary social work completed by La Caixa Foundation. If you, as owners of the institution, approve the dividend the board is proposing, the foundation will receive about EUR 550 million to fund the work. In CaixaBank, in addition to achieving an excellent return on equity as a result of our business, we are fully committed to supporting society's needs. I shall come to an end in a minute. I would like to share with you, ladies and gentlemen, a realistic message with regard to the challenges we are faced with. I also want to be optimistic. We first have considerable strengths and a well-defined strategy as I just described.
We have an excellent team, which is key to success, a team with huge service vocation. The team is at the very basis of all our actions because none of the achievements I've described in my presentation would have come true without their work. By the way, I would like to thank them most heartheartedly. We rely on the trust that every day our customers give us, which basically legitimizes our enterprise and work. We also have a unique approach to banking. Our aim is to keep on supporting society, households, and companies because we believe it is the best contribution CaixaBank can make with a view to supporting and promoting the transformation of society towards a model, a model with greater opportunities for all. Of course, none of this would be possible without your trust, ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to thank you all on my own behalf, on behalf of the board and the entire CaixaBank team for your trust, your support, and your contributions. One example of such contributions is the phenomenal work done by our shareholders' advisory committee. An example of support is the commitment of La Caixa Foundation, which I particularly value. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that our aim is precisely to continue deserving your trust. Thank you again for that trust, and thank you very much for your attention. We'd like to give the floor to Mr. Gortázar, our CEO.
Senyor president, senyores, e senyors Dear gentlemen, dear ladies, good morning to all of you. Like every year, I am honored to address the board. I too hope this is a positive session, a positive meeting to all of you. Today, we shall approve our financial statements, our accounts in 2022, which is a most relevant year for two reasons. First of all, we managed to complete successfully the merger of CaixaBank and Bankia by combining and merging together a number of processes, human teams, offices, branches, businesses, by also reaching some redundancy levels, coming to 6,500 members and professionals. Secondly, in this process, the focus on the business has remained most high, which has come to be shown in our results, as we shall see later.
The integration work conducted was most complex, absolutely unprecedented in Spain. As was the case with other mergers, it was absolutely exemplary and excellent. By the way, I would like to thank you all the staff, all members in the team, and also those who left. Thank you for their gratitude. Thank you for their hard work. Today, our bank would not be the reference point it is in Spain and Portugal. Before I would delve into these matters, more deeply, I shall say 2022 was not a particularly favorable year. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine, Spain experienced substantial deceleration of the economy, increased prices for fuel and inflation reaching high peaks.
In the second half of the year, the European Central Bank put in place a decisive monetary change with an increase in types, which were no longer negative, coming to 3% at present. In that new situation, we suffer from important repercussions, we did have an impact on our accounts in 2022. Spanish-speaking shareholders, I shall now continue in Spanish. In my presentation, I will go through the most important highlights in 2022. I also want to share with you the strength of the group CaixaBank, and I will finish with some positive comments, and I will share some thoughts for the future with you. As for our activity, commercial dynamism has been most positive, and without a doubt, it shows our commitment to continue supporting companies, the economy, and families.
As for our customers, in a context of high market volatility, the net recruitment almost came to EUR 7 billion, therefore, the total managed was over EUR 600 billion. In this section, I would like to underline savings in the long run, which brings together equity funds. Also includes pension schemes and insurance of savings. This is a fundamental pillar for us, which has also seen growth in 2022. At the end of the year, we reached a market share of 29.7%. We are extremely pleased for that because it shows the trust of our customers in our bank and also the important management conducted by our 29,000 financial certified staff operators.
In recent years, we have managed to consolidate a great supply, a great offer, for both investment and savings, with an excellent model based on consultancy and advice, a service for our clients. As expressed by the press, we were given an award to the best private bank in Spain and also in Portugal, where we have been awarded that prize for the fifth time. As for our financing, I should note that our credit portfolio has exceeded EUR 351 million without considering certain more dubious section. The growth came to EUR 11,244 million, with growth being most considerable in companies and consumption. Our vocation is to continue helping both companies and families in their everyday projects.
The growth in credit for household acquisition and purchasing was slightly lower, but it came to 0.7%. This portfolio, slightly old. Old amortization is high, but that effect has been countered by doubling the production of new mortgages if compared to 2021. This growth leans on an increased demand and a product offer called My Home, covering all needs related to households, including funding and other product types associated to the purchase of a house or a household. In 2022, more than 90% of our new mortgages in CaixaBank were fixed type, fixed interest rates. This means that the monthly payment, the monthly installment, will not be affected by the evolution of interest rates.
In fact, over the past seven years, we did promote this type of product very actively to the point that three-quarters of all new mortgages are fixed interest rates. The variable interest rate portfolio was granted before 2012, and so the capital has been amortized all over this period, and so the impact will be more reduced. In Portugal, BPI had a very satisfactory evolution with growth in the business volume of more than 2%. Remember, BPI joined the group 100% in 2017. Over these years, their market share has been gradually improved. Today, they run and manage 11% in credit, 40% of mortgages, and 11% of resources in the Portuguese market.
Making the most of synergies with CaixaBank, they saw an increase in their revenue, and they managed to strictly administer costs, which resulted in significant improvement of almost 20 points. BPI has always stood out for their very cautious management of risk, which is absolutely praiseworthy. All that was done without forgetting their commitment with clients. BPI today are a clear reference in Portugal and in the whole peninsula. In fact, they were chosen to be the best Portuguese bank by the journal The Banker and by Euromoney. Let me now briefly go through the main lines in our balance sheet.
Let me remind you that our financial statements for 2021 include the results for Bankia at the time of the legal merger, March 31st, and to facilitate comparisons for ordinary business year, between year or year compared to each year, the data in the balance sheet are here presented on a pro forma basis. The higher commercial activity, it has been reflected in the revenue, coming to more than EUR 11,594 million, which means an increase of 5.5% compared to the previous year. Let me now underline the evolution of the interest margin with an increase of 7.7%, which reflects the better credit evolution and also the increase in interest rates at the last portion of the year.
I should also mention the remaining revenue, aggregated and coming to 2.6%, including financial operations and other products. Please note the sums for other product lines, EUR 963 million negative. This item reduces our benefits, our revenue. They are basically regulatory burdens, which are applied to the banking system and not to other industries or systems, and they are intended to reinforce the resilience of the banking system. In over the past five years, a group of CaixaBank has paid for more than EUR 5,600 million for such concepts or such matters. If we now move on to expenditure, we have managed to reduce our costs and expenses by 5.6%. This evolution covers our cost discipline and also the savings associated to the merger, to our integration.
A year later, we set up a higher goal, namely reaching EUR 940 million per year, which we believe can be attained totally by 2023. We proved such savings were feasible. Besides, we managed to do so a year ahead. Let me note that our integration plan for our branches was designed with a focus on our vocation on social inclusion. We continue to have the vastest, the greatest commercial network in Spain. We have branches in more than 2,200 towns. We are the only bank in 470 of such towns. We continue providing our customers with services in 626 towns by means of moving branches, mobile branches. Let me now go back to our results.
Our improved revenue, 5.5%, and our reduction in costs, 5.6%, means an improvement coming to 6 points in our efficiency rate, and also in our exploitation management and 17.8%. Let me quickly comment on other aspects. Provisions, EUR 1,111 million. The most relevant aspect in this line has to do with our credit portfolio. An effective way of measuring this evolution is by risk costs, which express the same magnitude, but in this case divided by the average balance of the credit portfolio.
Last year, the ratio came to 0.25%, and it remained stable if compared to 2021, with a value well below that of 2020, where we were cautious, if you remember, with a fund being reserved for the potential impact of COVID-19 and the pandemic, which we still had in 2022, coming to EUR 1,137 million. We are cautious, we are prudent, we expect some deterioration of the economic cycle, but our situation makes us most comfortable. The results for the year come for EUR 3,145 million, which is 39.8% below the previous year in accounting terms. If we compare things, it is 29.7%.
Based on these reasonable results and based on our size, our ROTE comes to 9.8%, which is a better figure than that in the previous year, though we are still far from the goal in our strategic plan and what our investors require from us. That's why we plan on continuing improving and be able to attain 12% by 2024, profitability-wise. Obviously, this result should also be a basis for remunerating adequately our more than 600,000 shareholders. As the President mentioned, the proposal, the resolution for distributing these results is this year EUR 1,730 million.
We all know that our main shareholder is Fundación La Caixa. More than 30% of that distribution figure is intended for the foundation, EUR 550 million, which are directly go into society in the form of numerous initiatives to support all social classes, especially those that are more vulnerable. Giving society back such a relevant figure, EUR 550 million, make us absolutely different from any other bank. That makes the difference with us in Spain, and to be honest with you, worldwide, and we are ever so proud. Obviously, those of us who follow the news in recent weeks, we saw growing interest as for the robustness of the financial system in Europe. Our vision is that solvency and all supervision instruments for a capacity to act before in potential crisis are so much better than some time ago, and therefore, our resilience is very high.
This strength, we shouldn't forget that this strength is a common good for everyone, for the country. It is very positive for all of us to have a financing system that generates trust for the individuals and the companies for the whole of society. It is highly positive for all of us. We should remain real confident. I want to highlight specifically the strength of our group, CaixaBank, which is in a maximum position and has the capacity to face the future challenges and to keep on supporting families, households, and companies. That's why CaixaBank has created a very solid position. First of all, delinquency is at minimum. Coverage is high.
Thanks to a rigorous management and systematic, we can see that delinquency rate is in the best of the cycle, being reduced in 90 basis points from 3.6% in 2021 to 2.7% in December 2022, one of the lowest for the bank in history in Spain. It is relevant as well to see that the improvement in the coverage of delinquency. This has been increased to 74%, giving us a protection facing this situation. Liquidity, we have closed 2022 with very high levels of liquid assets, almost EUR 140 billion. The ratio NSFR is on 142%, and ratio LCR, liquidity coverage ratio is 194%, almost the double of the minimum regulatory required of 100%.
This strength has allow us to amortize previously 81% of the TLTRO, Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operation, which is a monetary tool designed by the European Central Bank. It will help to offer credit to households and companies. This was the main goal. In CaixaBank, we have a bigger credit portfolio, more than EUR 11,244 million. In TLTRO, EUR 15,620 million. Finally, let me remind you, our capacity of emission on the wholesale market. Last year, we made an issuance of shares, EUR 5,500 million. 54% were following the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
Our investors have been very interested in this product, the demand has been higher than the supply, we could reduce the cost of the issuance, we could prove the confidence and trust of the market in CaixaBank. Finally, the ratio CET1, the Common Equity Tier 1, is placed on 12.8. We can highlight two things. On the one hand, the generation, the organic generation of equity, 117 basic points. On the other hand, we have the reacquisition of shares that we announced in May and we closed in December, it was reduced in 83 basic points. If we compare those ratios, we are over the requisite that was saying 445 basic points, which is the same, more than EUR 9,005 million.
The goal of this strength is to create value for everyone, for you, our shareholders, and for all of us. We have the social commitment, which is part of our DNA in CaixaBank, and it's visible in our mission, our values, and it's very clear in the way we manage our activities. Let me remind you that we have the biggest network of offices in Spain, and it's as big as the second and third position together. All our ATMs can read the notebooks, which are very relevant for the elderly, and we are focusing on seniors. Closeness, which is so important for some groups of people, such as the ones living in the rural areas and for our seniors. We still are supporting them.
We also have some products that make it easy for some vulnerable collective to access to finance products. We have 364,000 customers with social or basic accounts. They are not paying any commissions. Through MicroBank, we have offered more than 1.3 million microcredits, and we have created more than 300,000 jobs. Also, we have been proactively supporting our customers. On the previous crisis, we helped 360,000 customers who had difficulties for payment. Also, we also offer some loans in the moment where the liquidity was very important. Let me remind you as well that our commitment goes beyond financing matters. Together with the Foundation 'La Caixa', we have volunteers participating in many, many projects. 14,000 employers, employees work in more than 6,000 social projects.
All in all, 2022 has been very good for our group. It's been a success. In 2023, we are facing new challenges because the environment is really complex. The last forecast, our last forecast says GDP growth of 1.3%, if we compare it to 5.5% in 2022. This will have an impact on our activity. Current inflation rates will have an impact on the costs, and the reduction of costs that we've seen in 2022 won't be repeated this year. Costs will increase. The interest rate will be more stable, but it will also have an impact in provisions because we expect for delinquency to be increased.
We also will have to pay some new taxes for revenue, and we have begun to pay them now. However, we are optimists because we began 2023 with a very strong balance sheet that will allow us to keep on supporting households, companies, and the society. We trust that, together with our corporate values and mission, we will reach the goals of our strategic plan for 2022 to 2024.
Despite the uncertain environment, I can assure you that we will still work in CaixaBank to make us, our group, a reference which is good for its customer, its staff, which is profitable and sustainable for everyone and the society. Finally, I would like to say you thank you for your support. Thank you to our board of directors for their good work and, Reed, and also all the people who work in group, in our group, CaixaBank, for their work, dedication, commitment, and professionality. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Gortázar, for your presentation. Now I'm going to tell you about the information which is required on the corporate governance. Regarding following the third recommendation of the Good Governance Code of Listed Companies approved by the National Securities Market Commission, I am going to inform you about the more relevant data on the corporate governance of CaixaBank since the last general minutes. To this regard, I want to highlight the proposals in the agenda for this meeting, the re-election of two independent directors and the appointment of a new counselor, Mr. John Reed.
John Reed is leaving us because he's been working for us for more than 12 years. At the same time, and it was made public last December, Mr. Sanchiz will be the coordinating director, and among other roles, he will coordinate, and he will chair to the initiatives of the non-executive directors. All the proposals we have are aligned with the best practices of good governance, and they keep with the new composition of the board of directors of CaixaBank, with independent directors making up for the 60% of our board, represented with most of the board. There's a great diversity. We have females, or 40% females, and in 2020, we reached already the 40% goal, which is a recommendation by the Code of Good Governance of Companies for 2022.
In order to have better transparency and submit for the approval of the general meeting any change regarding the main directors, the executive directors, we are getting rid in the retribution policy, the mechanisms of adjustment over the main components of the retribution of the executive directors. At the same time, payments for the early cessation of contracts early termination of contracts regarding the new guidelines of the European Banking Authority regarding renovation. As well, I want to tell you that on 2022, we have carried out a self-evaluation of the board of director, and then we have examined all the results, and we have realized that the board is adequate for the work they have to do.
The board will still improve the quality and efficiency of their management, they will have measures to improve the decision-making processes in the entity and their companies. Finally, let me remind you that CaixaBank, since January 2022, has the certification by AENOR of a Good Corporate Governance with maximum classification. Regarding the recommendation of good governance and following the third recommendation of the Code of Good Governance, I will give you more details. The annual report of the corporate governance regarding 2022 that we sent to the National Commissions of Security on February 17th, 2023, has the following information.
59 recommendations are fully complied with, four of them partially complied with, and one of them is not applicable to our society in such a way that in 2022, we are complying with all the recommendations as we do in the last general meeting. I leave the floor to the Secretary to tell us on the recommendations. Out of the 64 recommendations of this code, CaixaBank fully complies with more than 92% of recommendation and partially four of them. Regarding this recommendation partially comply with, first of all, recommendation number five, the meeting in May 14th, 2021, approve delegation of faculties on the board to make an issuance of stocks eventually that would be transferable for shares of CaixaBank or financial instruments, excluding the right for preference subscriptions.
An increase of the equity of this board is subject to the limitation of 50% of the equity and not 20%. We did this because we wanted to pursue the interest of the society and to have the maximum flexibility regarding the different instruments for its equity because some of these shares could not be traded for the, for the detailed markets. Notwithstanding all this, the agreement of the meeting follows the additional disposition, the 15th additional disposition of the Spanish Companies Act, which was introduced by Law 5/2021 on the April 12th that allows to some entities like CaixaBank, the possibility of not applying the limit of 20%. Regarding recommendation number 10, which was only partially complied with.
We were trying to avoid any counting problems with all the shareholders that are not here when they and they have not voted, and they are not agreeing with the proposals. What we wanted to do was to guarantee the transparency when counting all the votes. On the other hand, our society has said that we only partially comply with recommendation number 27. In CaixaBank, if the directors can't attend the board meetings, the delegation can be made with or without specific instruction as each director decides. We think that each director should be free to delegate their votes with a specific instruction as they see fit. This instruction makes it easier for that people who's receiving the vote delegation to attend this meeting.
Regarding recommendation number 64, society has declared to only partially comply with it because we have a non-competence pact, and it's not over the limit, which is equivalent to two years of the total remuneration for that director. The total count for every concept is more than two years. The recommendation number two of this code is not applicable to CaixaBank in the sense of the Article 42 of the Commerce Code. At any case, our board will still work very hard for good governance and for transparency when reporting to their shareholders. Now the secretary will read the quorum. We have 3,377 shareholders here. 3,851 million shares, 51.33% share capital. We have...
At 25% of the capital shares present here, total number of shares represented is 16,576. That's the name of shareholders, they hold EUR 748 million shares, these represent 76.56% of the share capital. As we have now, we can declare that we have the right quorum for this meeting. Now I will give the floor to the president.
In accordance with the Companies Act, I ask a gain, do you have any reservation, any comment, any protest on the valid number of the attendees to these meetings? Let me remind you, if any of the shareholders who is remotely participating, please do make any protest or any comment in writing to this address: lista.asistentes.junta@caixabank.com.
Then it will be included on the minutes of the meeting. Any shareholders who are here and want to do so can go please to the table which is on the right-hand side, on the right-hand side of the room. Any of you may speak, as the secretary said before. If you want for your presentation to be on the record, please tell us. If you want to it to be literally transcribed, please give it in writing before you are speaking. Thank you very much, Mr. Notary. We open the Q&A session. Mr. Secretary, you have the floor.
As the president said, now we begin the Q&A session. Any of the people or the shareholders who are in the room today and want to speak will be called for their intervention. We will also talk about any intervention that has been done remotely on our platform. As it's been previously stated, please, those of you in the room that don't want to be recorded and streaming, please say so when you ask for the floor. Let me tell you that at any moment when we begin the speaking tour or we don't have the information, following the Spanish Act on Companies, we will give you the information on the following days of this meeting if we don't have the information already. Now we will begin the Q&A session, and I'll give the floor to Mr. Josep de Marfa.
Hola, buen día a todo. Good morning, everyone. Today is Shabbat shalom. My name is Josep Marfa. I'm a chemist, and I am a pharmacist as well. I have never have made an activation, have never spoke at this room. I never have a paper or anything prepared. I think about it, I say it in four different languages. Today I'm talking in Valencian dialect, I have it noted in this paper. My speech has been reviewed by a member of the Valencian Language Academy. Anyway, she only find four difference between Catalan and Valencian, These were four letters, not four words even. I won't talk about the CaixaBank headquarters. I will just talk about the place where the shareholders meet. Once again, let me ask you to have an alternative meetings in Valencia and Barcelona. We don't need to change our headquarters.
The only need we have is to be approved by CaixaBank and to communicate that to the National Commission for Securities. It could be one year here, one year in Barcelona. We could do it like that, because in Barcelona, we are really looking forward to have the general meetings in the Palace of the Diagonal. We have something like 1,800 people attending those general meetings. Here, if you don't think about the staff, journalists, and so on, there are not so many CaixaBank shareholders. As a shareholders of CaixaBank, I would love to see the conference call in Barcelona full. One year we can do it there, one year we can do it here in Valencia.
As an example, for instance, I made this proposal in the Grupo Catalana Occidente , which has been renamed, and now is just Occident in Catalan. Catalana Occidente, pay attention to my suggestion. There's one year they have the meeting in Madrid, many people of Catalana Occidente, they go to Madrid. The next year they do it in Barcelona, everybody is happy. That's what I want. Everyone is happy. We've done it with some other societies we have in Seville and in Madrid. We didn't have to change the headquarters. This is a different thing. I am not asking you to change of headquarters. The thing is, I am asking you for do it in one place one year, in another place another year. CaixaBank should approve this. Then communicate this to the National Commission. Thank you very much.
I give the floor to Josefina Cortés.
Good morning, everyone. I am Josefina Cortés Tinet , pharmacist. 42,300 shares. I know that CaixaBank and La Caixa are different entities, as CaixaBank cooperates so good with the social actions of La Caixa Foundation, I would like to take this chance to congratulate our bank for the social support they are providing, which is ever more needed. I also want to take this chance to request that we need the hospital, the campaign hospital in Ukraine. I hope that really this is approved. As our president mentioned before, to be close to the people for everything that matters is what we have to do. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I give the floor to Eduard Mestres.
Good morning. Mr. Notary Public, please put this on the record. I'll begin. My name is Eduard Mestres Matero, son of Diego Note. Where freedom and democracy were founded. I'm a customer of La Caixa. I've been a client of the Caixa for 76 years and in Spain, 41, since the first day you were here. At 8:00 A.M., I was there to be your first customer in this city. My family has been with La Caixa for more than 100 years. Here we are, La Caixa. Everyone should know that. Right now, in which we are at La Caixa, I would like to ask everyone who ever be a customer of La Caixa, because La Caixa is the best bank in the world. Just one reason for this, its foundation. 30% of profits. To all people, 30% of our profits as for society, our solidarity fund.
The Bank of Valencia was worth more than EUR 4,000 million. Every year, I remind this to you, and you paid EUR 1 for that bank. You apologize to those shareholders that lost everything, and to the Valencian people. You really have a debt with Valencia. Mr. President, in the last meeting, you told me that you would like to be my friend. Friends, I select my friends. You cannot be my friend. You are the president here. Well, you are a president by recommendation, not by your own work. I will give you an opportunity if you want to be my friend. You, as the president, shouldn't be receiving any salary. Well, if you are hungry, come to my house. I will always make you lunch, Mr. Gonzalo.
I recognize that is a great professional. That's not paid with money. This is paid with the recognition of the people, the important people in history. You are paid far too much. You don't deserve the salary you have. Be aware of it. Never, never take La Caixa to Madrid, because if you do that, I will die. I won't survive that, and you will be guilty for my death. I demand, I say this every single year. I demand a Valencian director in La Caixa. We had La Caixa in Valencia. La Caixa bought Bankia, bought the Banco de Valencia, and we don't have any Valencian director. I'm going to tell you of one person that didn't help me a lot, but is the person who deserves to be here. Juan Roig as our director.
He would be so prestigious a director. We have to buy the 60% portion of the government. The government, we want them out. I want no politicians whatsoever from whatever political party. No politicians whatsoever, now or never. No. Our employees are our best asset, indeed. We are to treat them nicely, not frighten them. We are to care for them. We are to treat them so much better than we do. They have to smile in turn to their customers. I don't want to forget those in Valencia. The ones to forget, those people in Valencia, my mark to them is an A+. They are fantastic. Now you will go for lunch all together, aren't you? Who pays for lunch? Customers. You go to a fancy restaurant, yeah?
Are you gonna go to a bar and pay for a set menu for EUR 10, EUR 12? Are you gonna pay your lunch out of your pocket? You should. You know, do you pay overtime to your employees, to our employees, when they stay long hours at the office? You ought to pay for your lunch with your own money or pay your overtime with your own money. To finish with, don't leave Valencia. Valencia is neutral territory. Valencia is powerful in La Caixa, and we are not crooked as all those scandals in Spain about Valencians and Catalans. You know, we are absolutely neutral here in Valencia. We want no politics. Okay, that's all from me. Well, I could say a lot more things, actually, but I shouldn't. I will not. Well, long live La Caixa. Long live Valencia. Long live Catalunya or Catalonia.
The floor goes to Edel C`ania Podavijan.
Good morning, good afternoon, dear CaixaBank family. Don't mean to use familia, family, out of the blue. Not at all. In actual fact, many years ago, I swapped banks on the Balearic Islands, where I lived, and I chose you. Not for economic interests, not for professionalization, which indeed, of course, CaixaBank do have such properties, but for the family component in the bank, you know, the friendly treatment. That was really appealing to me, and ever since I've been a client and I've been in the bank. Of course, I, ever since that moment, I was fortunate enough to get to know a few personalities in this extraordinary institution. High-statute people. I met three of those high-statute people. I will mention them chronologically.
Mr. Isidre Fainé, Mr. Jaume Lanaspa, Mr. Tomás Muniesa. Of course, many branch directors, and I also met many employees, those with the lowest rank too. I felt, you know, most friendly to them. I was friendly to them. They were friendly to me, and with some of them I made friends, and we were sort of in harmony, if I may say so. With my two hats, I have two jobs, or I had two jobs, a musician and a doctor. When I wear both hats, I realize those are values not only for a bank, but for the whole of society. I could tell you very interesting stories. I remember a patient of mine back in time in Germany, we became friends, because we were both musicians.
He was a great violinist, so was his brother, Mikhail Vonstein. I remember a story he told me, a story that comes to reinforce the importance of friendliness and spirit, as Beethoven already told us in his symphony, The Brotherhood of Human Beings. The youngest brother, Mikhail Vonstein, you know, I've known him for a long time, but first, through stories told to me. As I said, he was a patient of mine in Germany. So the brother was asked to play the violin when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in World War II. Dear family of mine, that did happen. It was a miracle. It is a matter of fact, he stopped the war. Music stopped the war at that very moment when he played Bach's music.
The village, which was being conquered in World War II at the time, that war on that very spot stopped thanks to his music, to his violin. You know, silence prevailed amidst war. What hope can this bring to us as human beings? It is those values that we need to live up to, as was the case hundreds of years ago with Beethoven, a deaf musician. We ought to remain joyful, and we ought to feel twinned in a real brotherhood and sisterhood all over the world. Based on our experience in CaixaBank, hopefully and eventually the whole planet would benefit from peace and love. Thank you.
Thank you. The floor goes to Antonio Rafael Garcia.
First of all, for the records, I want my whole speech, I want all my words to be perfectly reflected in the minutes. Dear directors, dear members of the board, dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, I speak as a shareholder and as a client of CaixaBank. I've always felt proud of our foundation and our work, and that's why I am a client to CaixaBank. I always thought your social work was the flagship, the flagship of the entire institution. Some recent events caused me to think that the social policy in La Caixa has changed. I know this to be true because I speak here on behalf of a group who have been neglected by CaixaBank, a group who is hopeless, who cannot defend themselves, who have been, really affected.
They have no power to defend themselves because they were not heard before a decision was made to stop their pension complement in their remuneration scheme. CaixaBank, on the basis of a labor agreement, in other words, with the favor of major unions, imposed a complement, a supplement of 0.35% fixed. Fixed percentage, not to be changed. That was fought back by the company in Kafka style, if I may say so. Since 2008, all these aspects have been supported by the staff. It is about time those who retire, you know, do this. Being made redundant, isn't that a sacrifice? Being retired early, isn't that sacrifice? That argument sufficed for this measure to be put in place, coming to 0.35%. Sine die, in Latin, without a safeguard provision. Shame. Shameful it is.
Absolutely. It is not a simple group. It is a group who have devoted 30 years in their lives to the company, giving their time up, their family time, just to meet up with your revenue requirements. A group who is addressed by many parties, a group of people who put up a good fight to be able to retire on dignified terms, who fought for adequate, decent pension supplements. Now, without the possibility of being listened to, their pension being capped in a most offensive manner. It is absolutely shameful for an institution like this one, hence my intervention here today at this moment in time for this general meeting of shareholders, which is the top government body in CaixaBank, to encourage their managers to correct and amend such unfair behavior and measure.
Thank you. The floor goes to Francisco Albert Martinez .
Hello, good morning. I am here in the general meeting on behalf of ADICAE, representing small saving clients and small shareholders in CaixaBank. As for 2022, investors and shareholders in CaixaBank had good news. After some years of no changes, shares got back in shape with almost the double of the beginning of the year, EUR 4. I would like to think this was the result of really remarkable management in the bank. Rather, it is the result of the impact of some external factors which are beyond your control. There seem to be growing uncertainties worldwide, which has caused shares to shrink again. In other words, your scheme for purchasing shares did not manage to stop this, the downward spiraling at the time in CaixaBank.
You could have used the money, EUR 1,100 million in 2022, for other investment to be able to generate new assets for your bank and your shareholders. You failed to behave as proper managers by telling us that CaixaBank did not have opportunities to profitably grow in a globalized world. You defended such schemes alleging there were benefits for the shareholders. As a matter of fact, no, dividends are not higher. The fact is that you divide benefit into a bigger number. Who benefits the most? The entity itself? What about control shareholders? They manage to have a greater presence in the bank as a result of that scheme. Criteria has covered more than 32.1%. If we add the participation, the share of the state, we are dangerously close to the barrier of 50%.
Therefore, two shareholders could have control over the company and can hold us, you know, actually hijack us, becoming hostages. We cannot stand up and complain about that. We, small percentage of shareholders, wonder what the usefulness of the meeting is when nothing can be changed. In 2022, the monetary policy was beneficial. The rise in interest rate was beneficial. Both policies were efficiently transferred onto credit, which accelerated access to credit in different conditions to companies with a lot of money going into that business if compared to the previous year. You found no problem in joining the opposite trend, recovering consumer savings via deposits, where there seems to be some type of obscure movements. You know, Spanish banks are at the very end of at the very last.
Besides, they have been deleted from some service catalogs, consumers cannot get return for their investment. What needs to happen in Spain for a conservative investor to have decent revenue? You cannot sell equity funds for investment as a welcome solution by clients. In fact, they risk their savings, and profitability is not assured. Of course, you continue getting revenue and profit from such measures. This is causing large amounts of money to find other alternatives, and basically, this is damaging the advantages initially proposed. In other words, you are accomplices to the increases which affect Spanish consumers. You even dare to openly say there's not a war for debts in Spain because there's loads of liquidity in the sector, liquidity which has been obtained through TLTRO options.
You're out of time. You're out of time, Mr. Albert.
Such policies would have to be modified because a lot of the sector put a lot of money into those options, following the interest in a deposit rate close to 2%. That was a practice, absolutely debatable, which has perverted effects in the Spanish banking system because it actually neglects Spanish consumers' savings and their position because you don't seem to need it as a funding avenue. In spite of these public problems, you continue denying the issues, and you continue taking positions favorable for other aspects. Let me remind you that this sector already owes Spanish consumers more than EUR 51 billion from the bank rescue, from which EUR 20,000 is down to you because remember, the state help you with such funding given for free.
It's no surprise that dividends are still recovered by or should be recovered by Spaniards, but they only cover a fourth of that investment. Similarly, as for the shadows cast of the financial sector, currently, CaixaBank has issued bonds which are convertible, which have been depreciated up to 11%. Do we have the necessary fire walls in case these ratios are harmed?
Thank you. We have a lot of interventions. We should observe the turns allocated. I give the floor to Fernando Martin. Be reminded that you only have five minutes.
Good morning, everyone. I would like for my intervention to be literally recorded on the record. I come here representing the ICA and also the small shareholders of CaixaBank. Despite that the sector and this entity is moving towards digitalization, which will result in less cost, we as consumers see that despite that you have more less half a million customers, your revenues and commissions have been increases. Specifically, your commission has increased in EUR 3 million this year in all the different areas. Can you tell us how are you earning more money with less customer in a digital world? Commission is a fourth of your total revenue. We don't need another
Entity that's just giving lots of commission to its directors and not giving anything to the customer. You have the entity with the biggest number of national customers, and we hope that you give back something to society. Regarding digitalization, let me remind you again that this is not only that you have to increase your margin. You are just firing a lot of people, closing offices, and driving customers to the digital platforms. This is not good for our society. This is not a good business model. This is something that anyone can do. What will happen when you cannot get that increase in your profits by laying off people or closing offices? You have to be different, so your customers won't leave you and look for another solution which are better for them.
CaixaBank is on the rank making on the values of the. In Spain, mortgages has been very important, almost double than as the previous year. Another of the claims are vinculated products, revolving cards and some others. Some people has still to claim their mortgages, and there are still bad practices in when hiring, especially in a context, in a context in which consumers need all the resources to avoid any risk sit-situations due to the inflation. If there's something that we all agree is that in 2022, that was very hard for the economy of every consumer. In fact, the average increase in the salaries was around 3%, despite that the inflation was close to 6%.
This situation has really affected you because we cannot understand why you dedicate four items in the agenda to address the increase of the remuneration of your directors. These meetings are just a facade. You are just congratulating each other. You increase your remuneration in an obscene way. All the small shareholders can't do anything about it. We don't agree with the Good Practices Code that you really join after bargaining with the government. Your agreements cannot be good for your consumers. Some of the solutions of this core Code have some measures that will only benefit you, because we will have some debt amortization, which will be higher. We will have interest accruing.
Lastly, we would like to tell you that in the future, we have an opportunity for many of the claims in an impartial way, and this will be good for the transparency of the industry, so we encourage you to follow it. You don't have any more arguments to say that the minimum rate clause is not abusive. The expenses when one has to buy a mortgage has to be paid by the customers. We have so many abusive practices that we have been suffering during the last years. We really hope that CaixaBank will react and help us. You have the opportunity to change this shameful situation. Wouldn't it be better to have to face the claims of your customers in spite of going to the court? Wouldn't it be better to be more transparent? Thank you.
Gracias.
Good morning, Mr. President, Mr. CEO, dear directors, dear shareholders. My name is Begoña Peiró, and I'm the president of the Union of Employees at CaixaBank. I want my intervention to be on the record. Once more, we have to come here to denounce the bad situation of CaixaBank staff. This is an extreme situation, and we've been telling you about it for many years, and you don't seem to care. Today, we are the union with 41% of the union representativity, because more than 12,000 employees trust us, and we will work for them. We are going to fight because we want to change this situation. We want for you to commit to take care of your staff. The staff is exhausted because they have to work very hard every day.
Let me remind you that in July 2022, there was a survey on cultural climate and commitment, and they only mention the commitment culture and leadership. Any mention on the worsening of the working atmosphere in our company. In that survey, employees were asked if they would recommend to their friends and family to work in CaixaBank. Their response were very clear, "No." Staff at CaixaBank are at their ends with, What do you do? We will tell you once again. You are not honest with us. You show us the results that it's been an improvement on the experience of your customers as one of the results. We have the double of the claims by the customers, and I'm referring to official data here. You know why? Because this entity is not treating their customers well. We have many claims with the...
Some of the staff are suffering threats, and there has been an increase of 500% compared to 2016. Please do not use some figures which do not show the reality. The customers are not happy with our service, and the employees are the one facing this situation. You don't want anything to change. The goals are growing, and we have the customers fed up because they only, they are only addressed to in order to sell them new products. We don't fight for them. We don't take care of their issues. The only important thing is that profits keep growing. The reality for our staff is that we are alone because you are not changing anything. This board of directors left the staff behind long ago. They are greedy. They are not focusing on quality.
They place before glorization before the staff. That's why I want to address to your staff. If we don't do the things we want to do, nobody is going to do it for us. If we want our situation to change, we have to change. We, the staff, have the power to change our working conditions. We show this in some other instances, and we need to do that. We have to fight together for our rights and for our working conditions because they are ours. Do not forget this. Dear President, dear CEO, dear Directors, you have to do something about it, and you have to change this situation, both for your customers and your employees. Please comply with your promises and do not generate empty expectations through it. If you don't do it, the staff will end with this situation that you have placed us into. Thank you.
Good morning. First of all, I would like my intervention to be on the record. I'm Ricard Ruiz. I am a worker in CaixaBank, and I represent a group of shareholders, workers, family, and customers who have delegated their vote by the CC.OO. Comisiones Obreras union. We want today to greet our staff, our workers, that they can say they are really heroes that allow you to show your profits in 2022. A recognition that the board of directors are not doing to the workers. Now we have the same situation. First, you block the collective bargaining, and then you didn't want to increase salaries in a percentage that will compensate the loss of acquisitive power during the last years and for this 2023.
You require from your workers an extraordinary effort for many years, both on the daily work and on the concession. When we have some better moments for our company, the directors are going to have their salaries increased and dividends are going to be allocated. Nothing for the workers. The workers have been working very hard during the pandemic and also during the merger with Bankia, which has required a huge effort. Still, we are still working very hard for it. Despite this, despite the increase of the interest rate, we have the same conditions as before, with working conditions which are bad for the health of your staff and a commercial pressure which is out of the limits because we have to work very hard to, in order to achieve the goals you have.
This has been very hard for our sales people. There are no means for them. Honestly, you are going beyond the limits which are reasonable. We need a real change. We need to change the policies, we should have people as the focus of the company. Those at the board of directors, especially the CEO, can be responsible for this change of mindset. When I talk about people, I also refer to our customers, individuals and SMEs, that my need for the funding of CaixaBank, we should be focusing on them. You are always mentioning the Foundation, which is the first shareholder of this bank. Let me remind you the words of your president some years ago.
To be a leader is to be honest, to have a project, and to make your workers to participate because they have the right to know who they are working for. As a reply to you, who's more important in a company, if the shareholder, the worker, or the director? The workers are the more important. If they feel okay, they will work properly, and the customers will be worked for. The goals will be met, and the shareholders will be happy, as well as the supplier. We will have a sustainable company.
Workers are just not a number. We are the most important asset of the company, and that should be recognized in the treatment and in the remuneration. From Comisiones Obreras unions, please, do take into account these statements, and we want to recover the quality of work we had before. This would be good for society and for CaixaBank. That's why Comisiones Obreras will vote no to points two, three, five, eight, nine, 11, and 10. We will abstain from four, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4. Thank you.
Gracias. Thank you. I'll give the floor to Mr. Iván Argüelles.
Good morning, Mr. President, dear CEO, directors, dear shareholders. I'm Iván Argüelles. I'm the secretary of UGT union in CaixaBank. I speak on their behalf and on the behalf of so many that have delegated their votes. I want my intervention to be on the record. As the CEO said, we have amazing profits in 2022. You might think that we should be happy for it. We are. Those profits cannot be done, obtained, with the suffering of the workers. We are sure that the company should take care of their workers. That's why we are going to vote against some of the resolution. The workers are really exhausted. They are overworking a lot.
It, you can see on the psychosocial risk assessment, and this is the reality. From our union, we are saying that for many years. I mean, the directors are not in contact with the workers. As a result, we have the lowest feeling of belonging to the entity in the different surveys. You are really risking the sustainability of the business in which the people are really relevant, and you forget that. Very recently, you've changed an important thing in the business, and you are telling us that these changes will mean focusing on the customer and not on the products. The staff hasn't seen any changes. Why this costly change if it's not going to be good for workers and customers? All the workers in CaixaBank want to give a good service to our customers.
We just don't want to sell them something. I mean, we are like a bazaar. We are selling them products every single day. You shouldn't be on this way any longer. Don't be so greedy. From our union, we have warned you many times before. If we cannot provide the services for society, the public sector will have to look for new alternatives. You are telling our staff that they have to be dedicated, that they have to work very hard, but you are not doing that. You boast that we are the bank with the most important social commitment in the world, but on the other hand, you are not doing anything for your workers unless you are forced by law. Regarding working, you don't have any social commitment.
You didn't show it, not even recently when we asked that we should have the increase in salaries that we have agreed in the collective agreement. That's why you might understand that we will reject the proposal of an increase of 5% of the CEO. As if your salaries were not too high, if you compare them to the average wage in our company. You could today offer something good for your workers if you support their careers. We could also have some remote working, and you should not pressure them so much to sell everything, and we should have some goals focusing on a better service to the customer. You should also get rid of these kind of territorial directors which are constantly increasing the goals of the company. Also, you have a variable remuneration system for the rest of the workers.
This is possible because in Bankia they did it. UGT, our union, as our workers, we do not agree with the system, that it's not transparent and it's only focusing on the results, and it's not being good for the health of many of the workers because they have so much commercial pressure. All in all, dear directors, all the workers in CaixaBank want to work thinking that the company takes care of us. The staff, despite all the difficulties, have been working really hard, we have been following this quality service we want to provide. Dear directors, it's in your hands. That's why we will vote against one, two, three, four, and six because they are not complying with the quality criteria. Seven, eight, nine, and 12. Thank you very much.
The floor goes to Mr. Ángel Bartolomé.
Buenos dias. I want my intervention to be in the minutes, in the records. Ladies and gentlemen, shareholders, directors, my name is Ángel Bartolomé. I am here on behalf representing Athem, Acabam, and Xep, and numerous shareholders too. In last year's intervention, we asked for an improved work environment, improved health and safety, improved work conditions. Unfortunately, things have not changed. Workstations are under pressure to an incredible degree without being able to adequately serve clients. The replacement of the director who implemented this could be a relevant change. To date, things have not changed. Rather, they have worsened. At Athem, we believe this is due to the fact that intermediary positions exert a short-term management style. they.
That is obviously part of the salary, of their wages, that causes them to put a lot of pressure on their teams. Their teams, who are remunerated to a much lower state, cannot work properly. A part of the solution to the problem would be to reach consensus with union representatives and have a bonus and incentive scheme that were to be absolutely transparent and clear with very clear criteria. Mr. President, it is now pressing, it is urgent for you to consider the well-being of your staff as a strategic factor. You are to take measures for professionals in this company to be able not to be burnt out and for them to be able not to suffer from stress. I shall focus on something which the staff is suffering from, the waning purchasing power.
In August, Acept formally applied for a discussion panel to be opened internally to tackle the purchasing power reduction of all staff. This type of reduced purchasing power up to 2022 in all the different professional groups has come to more than 18%. Our requirement was based on the current economic situation. The interest rates were no longer negative. Their growing trend was obvious. That was going to have a positive impact on the bottom line straight away, even though there could be bad debtors. It was great news for shareholders. We are pleased about it. What answer did we get? What response did we get? We were told this is a matter of the collective bargaining agreement. We were not given a straight answer.
We understood that if we or those who signed the agreement, the unions, if they were to admit such harsh working conditions without including a review provision, according to inflation, you know, we thought the same could happen. You were right. That was the case. The solution to our brutal wane in the, our purchasing power or the employees was, what was the solution? We are begging. We are beggars, and you give us peanuts. Peanuts. Something, you know, just a tiny pay, which besides is to be reviewed yearly. That doesn't come to overcome the problem with the, with the purchasing power of the staff. It's not a big, grand agreement as you thought it was.
We seem to be juggling with our home economics, but it is only fair to pay the whole staff on the basis of benefits, of dividends and the increased revenue. You need to reconsider the waning purchasing power of your staff as regards debts by reaching agreement as for the financial conditions of the members of the staff, as you were informed in March last year. Sorry, on March this year. Our salary is to be reviewed the same as mortgages.
If we, people, are your best asset, our salaries need to be improved. Neither CaixaBank, neither the union signing the agreement need to resort to external mechanisms because our economic reality differs from that of other companies in this sector, and that is economically suffocating CaixaBank employees. Mr. President, it's up to you, and it's up to the board you preside over to change this situation. To finish with, AFEC want to share their ideas and solutions to try and find a positive solution.
Elena Serrano. Ms. Elena Serrano.
My intervention is for the records. Dear board members, dear shareholders, dear attendees, my name is Elena Serrano, secretary general of the union, SATE. Congratulations on the dividends, on the earnings, on the results, but we regret the quality, the poor quality at our branches. No attention being paid to that. Nothing has changed under the sun. You did not listen to any of the union claims in the previous general meeting. You now have an opportunity to go back to a proper service system instead of being a, an avant-garde, you know, electronics communication company. No, we should do things properly.
Besides, pressure is too excessive indeed and too many calls to be made, too many data to be filled in by employees, sales-wise. You know, they cannot take it any longer. They are blocked, burnt out. They do not know what they need to sell every day after day. Yeah. What matters? To take a nice picture for the press? The incentives directors get, of course, are not justifiable. Of course, we don't agree with the elimination of bonuses and incentives that are definitely well-deserved. How many people have to go off sick for CaixaBank to take a note of this, to take notice? Nobody wants to be promoted. No one wants to be responsible for more and more projects. Are you not going to listen to us?
We encourage directors to take care of those working at the branches. Without them, the company would not make sense. Without them, you know, profit would not be made. Without them, we couldn't do any social foundation work for society to benefit from it. We cannot do without companies in the central headquarters, you know, who work hours on end doing a lot of overtime. We need respect to be brought back. We need employees to be excited back about their work for them to have a stronger sense of belonging. You ask us to give the company a good reputation, but in order to get, you need to give. Employees are only the recipients of loads and loads of pressures, let alone small shareholders.
Yes, you and all of you, shareholders, big shareholders, in spite of your revenue, of your profit, you don't put part of it for the welfare and well-being of your employees. We ask the members of the board, we ask the directors to change this trend because everything is down and starts with people and the workers at CaixaBank.
Óscar Bayona
Ladies and gentlemen, shareholder, members of the board of directors, my name is Óscar Bayona I also represent Bank by CaixaBank union, group of people of... Can you sleep at night or are you just enjoying life? Many colleagues, many employees, have to take sleeping pills to be able to sleep. Do you take anxiety drugs? Did you take some of those pills to come here and submit your results?
Some colleagues of ours cannot take any further pressure in spite of the millions of EUR, you know. Nothing is done for our people's mental health. I sent you quite a few emails this morning. Santander, EUR 9,600 million, BBVA, CaixaBank, EUR 340. Do you know that as a board, you rank last on that list about caring for your employees? Please don't give us any more excuses. If things continue this way, you are bound to suffer from some consequences. You closed down a lot of branches. Would one of you like to resign? Please put your hands up. Make it easier for us. We don't want to make up our minds and choose one of you. Did you ever say something similar to us?
Can you imagine that type of life day after day? Even if you have excellent results, it will never be enough, will it? Today, bank workers and CaixaBank employees are saying, "No, enough is enough. Enough is enough." Results, the results of a year cannot be reached in just one quarter. You speed us up completely, that will cause us to pay a toll. The number of customers who are unhappy is now 4x bigger. When a customer leaves for price reasons, they might come back for service reasons. If customers leave out of service problems, they shall never come back, will they? Yes, these benefits are very good. You may rest for a while, some peace and quiet for a while, you will see what may happen to your employees.
Of course, you want to get people to work hard, we need to adapt to customer needs properly, not under pressure. We are part of the bank sector. No excuse fits in because too much greed is bad for all. You seem to be very happy about results, do you remember the song by Supertramp, Crisis? What crisis? You seem to believe our customers can take it all. You tell us, "Pressure? What pressure?" I'm not only criticizing you, I'm asking you for help. Thousands of employees are salary discriminated with the same position, doing the same work. Some of them get less money, less of a salary, and that will continue even after five, those five years.
There will be differences in pension schemes and retirement amounts, and there will be differences, over 200% increases should the employee die or be off sick for good. Families, our families are discriminated to, or our children. Some of them get help up to 18, others up to till they are 21 years old. What do you want? Buying a bank is a verb, is not an adjective. Buying a verb. You know, children are equally entitled. We are thankful, but, we are professionals in the same team. A judge should have the final say. What sense does it make to do something today and get your bonus in 5 years' time? This is not done by a socially responsible company, is it?
Thank you. Antonio Cano.
Thank you, dear President, CEO, members of the board, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. My name is Antonio Cano Yvernet. I speak on my name, on my own behalf, and I also have some proxy votes, pursuing to the conditions said in the union section. Please, keep my intervention in the records. Given a vast majority, I would like our voting to be properly recorded. I want to focus on the gradual laws in certain aspects in CaixaBank, which is dangerous to CaixaBank, as this will certainly have a toll in future results. Can you please ask some questions? Number one. How can we, and how can you feel comfortable running a company in which 60% of the staff would not recommend the company to others? We're not making things up.
These data come from a survey report submitted last year. Number two. Of the past few years, did you wonder why a high number of new employees actually drop out before the contract trial period? How come? How come Spain, well, you know, without a doubt, that Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe for young people, 29.3%. What do you do to keep talent with the company when you recruit talent? Number three, how can you allow CaixaBank to be embarrassed enough to be put up as a candidate for the worst company of the year by Consumers Associations Aqua, as published by Expansión last February? Your directors are going to have a remuneration increase in line with the average increase of the staff.
Let me say that from the annual remuneration report in 2021, for the period between 18 and 29, the fixed remuneration section of the board had been raised by 52.82%, while the actual increase for the staff in 2023 on the basis of not real salaries is really, really far from that 5%. There's no correlation between both increases whatsoever. You still consider the staff a cost and not an asset. You are wrong. You are making a mistake. We are faced with high inflation, with high interest rates. The purchasing power of the staff is definitely degraded, deteriorated, and many workers in our bank will certainly find it difficult to pay their mortgage or their living expenses, et cetera.
Having said so, perhaps you ought to reconsider the remuneration of the whole staff following the same criteria you apply to yourselves and start working on a deep salary review, particularly for the lowest salaries. As for the deterioration of our reputation, with customers and clients in general, we understand this degradation is due to events and faulty services, poor services being provided over the past few years. On the basis of such deterioration, it is essential to review practices and processes which really exert high pressure on the staff, and for them to improve their service to customers.
You have a new opportunity now with current interest rates, so you can reverse these processes and improve training schemes at CaixaBank for employees to be able to face the way they treat these customers and to strengthen our position versus the competition. Finally, you are morally obliged to create value to make this company the best possible working place, and you have to defend our rooting, our roots and traditions. In other words, the promotion of Catalan as a language and for you to return the headquarters to Barcelona, where they should have stayed. That's all from us, but it is now pressing for you to make decisions. Thank you very much.
Gracias.
Thank you. I give the third floor to Mr. Joan Reynés. Good morning. I would like my intervention to be literally on the record. Good morning. I'm Joan Reynés, syndicate from this union in the Balearic Islands. First of all, UV is a shareholder of CaixaBank, and I don't know why we have to speak so late in the interventions. We represent the workers in Mallorca, and we are not well considered on what's happening. There was a streaming in two meetings ago which were not right. It was not recorded. Our intervention was not recorded some of the times. Are you doing this because you don't want to give us a reply to the questions we have? What's happening with the accounts in CaixaBank? Do you have...
Do we have shareholders which are Class A and some shareholders are Class B and not so worthy? We really request that all the decisions are made for everyone. We are going to focus mainly on two things: the commercial pressure of the staff that is being mentioned by all my colleagues, and also discrimination by work. We want to say that there's an immense pressure for the salespeople, and this is done every single week. We have to sell whatever the cost. Not something which is good for the customers, but just to increase or to get better revenues. Just would like to say that some directors have to have the cashiers open till two, half past two. Some other directors say that the cashier had to be closed at 11, and they have to sell products of the bank till two.
We also have some vacancies, and they should be covered. Sometimes they say to the customers, "Oh, this is not working on the order. There are not financial resources in order not to provide for those who are coming with this kind of notebooks to the ATMs." This is a shame. Shame on you. Shame on you. Also, Say that wants to teach workers, so they do all the dirty work, and then we have this double standard, which is a risk for the workers because it forces the workers to comply with the regulation, which is too hard on them. Mr. President, dear shareholders, represent of the FROB and Fundación La Caixa, this is not good for our reputation. We request that you should stop this commercial goal and that these double kind of standards that you are having.
In February, there was a strike in CaixaBank. Please do not force us to go on a strike, pickle. In CaixaBank, they had a 60% assistance complying with the strike. It would be much higher in CaixaBank. This, we have a 12% for ROTE. With the situation of the staff right now, I don't think you are going to achieve this. Most of the staff is going to get, like, a leave because they are depressed. Staff are really overworked. You are not going to get a 12% return on tangible equity. You should get more information on the situation of the staff. You should visit your offices. Also, there's inequality in fundamental things. Every worker should be treated equally. For instance, risk.
If some of us die, they have second-class widows and orphans because there's discrimination. Are you going to still keep on with these practices which are discriminatory? Okay. We are out of time. Please, if you can finish with your question, we would appreciate that. Thank you. Well, basically, I claim that same equal wages, equal work.
Thank you. Thank you. I'll give the floor to Carlos Alberto Guerrero.
Good morning. I would like for my intervention to be on the record. Directors, president, my name is Carlos Guerrero. I'm a shareholder, I am a worker, and I am a worker representative in CaixaBank. It's been very hard years with the interest rate even below zero, and you have asked for sacrifices.
Shareholders have less dividends, workers have been laid off, customers have seen that the service provided has been not so good. I understand that focusing on sales is being done by the board of directors. All this has consequences for society, for instance, we have to do some marketing campaigns. You are focusing on good positioning. However, in the real world, in the neighborhoods, at street level, there are many critics and many workers who have been working a lot and very hard for your company are leaving. Very difficult situations because they are criticized by some, sometimes even their neighbors, their own family. Let's not cheat any longer. You have the surveys, you have good results for your surveys, where are you getting those results? What do you say?
Because workers are telling the customers that they need to get a rate of 9 or 10 because if not, they will be punished, and that's why you are getting such good surveys. We cannot do that. On the other hand, do you know that we are transforming into digital some customers which are just asking for information? Is it necessary to have an omni-channel, which is real, in order to be closer to the customer and to have better reputation and better sales, of course? Ladies and gentlemen, we are on a new cycle. The accounts of our clients are not a liability in our result, in our balance sheet. Let's do something different. Let's open the offices. Let's invite our customers. Let's don't do so much telemarketing.
Let's really help the customers, and let's have a real omni-channel, so our customers can address us in the way which is more convenient for them. Let's support cooperation among the different departments instead of fighting cannibalization. Everything is okay if you sell something. Let's focus on the quality we provide our customers. Mr. President, my question is: Don't you think that it's the time to come back to a model which is kinder to our customers, a model in which we recognize the service we provide and the work of your staff?
Their contribution to the development of our society. Closeness, kindness, and opportunities for the business won't be achieved by big institutional campaigns, but with the things that we do every day in our offices, every time we get in touch with our customers, whichever the channel. I really hope that next year we will see some changes which are required to recover the trust of our customers and to be good for the society, the shareholders, and our workers. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I leave the floor now to Jordi Calvo.
Mr. Notary, I would like for my intervention to be literally on the record. Good morning, dear shareholders, members of the board. I am Jordi Calvo, and I talk with the campaign Banca Armada. I'm representing more than 12,000 shares. Once more, we're here denouncing the relation of your bank with the companies which are devoted to arms and specifically to the militarizations of borders, and that makes you responsible for the breach of human rights on our borders and for the death of thousands of people, families who are running away from hunger, repression, and war.
War in which too often find arms, weapons which have been manufactured in Spain, weapons that just are good for those who are selling them. I will try to focus on a conflict that usually is not on the armed conflicts, but has more death than many of the wars we know. It's a war in which there's only one armed party, and they do not need the bullets because their enemies are not a threat for anyone. They just leave it on the sea, or they just die when they climb a wall, and they are declared immigrants with no rights, no vote. With the technology of the companies you support, nobody cares about the migrants. Who cares about the 2,900 people that have died in the Mediterranean Sea only in 2022?
More than 70 people died last June when they tried to cross the Melilla border. CaixaBank has financed four companies related to the border war: Boeing, Eulen, Indra, and Accenture. I'll give you some details about them. Since 2019, CaixaBank has bought EUR 5 million in Indra bonds. 27% of their production is devoted to military device, electronic devices, which are used too in the borders as well. Indra as well has the outside surveillance system, this force the ships and the boats of the migrants to more difficult routes every day. How many lives we lost at sea where they, when they were running away from their countries? CaixaBank also have granted loans to up to EUR 4 million to Eulen, who manages the migrants' centers in Ceuta and Melilla, they breach the human rights there.
Amnesty International are really denouncing them. They are going to jail. Those migrants are going to jail without a trial. Then Vicento. CaixaBank invested EUR 90 million in this company, and this company has got contracts for millions to control the borders in Europe's, a system that gathers data about everyone coming in and out of our country, our countries. They have a technology also with facial recognition with its racist president, members of the board, shareholders. Your financing of the border war really nullifies any social work you do with migrants. Many of you might be ashamed when you receive the dividends of this year. Sorry for that. Thank you for your attention.
Gracias. I give the floor to Mr. Javier Toca.
Good morning, Mr. Notary. I would like for my intervention to be literally on the record. Good morning, shareholders, members of the board, Mr. President. My name is Javier Toca, and I speak here on behalf of the campaign Banca Armada. I am representing 10 shareholders that have give us the rights on 21,000 shares. Mr. President, we are sorry to mention your links with companies that create nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons have been forbidden by a treaty that was on force in January 2021, but there are companies that are still manufacturing them. 51 countries has signed a treaty that forbids for the use, any use of nuclear weapons, and it also forbids to use or to threaten with those weapons, and it also forbids the assistance to any of those forbidden acts. Mr. President, to finance those companies is a way of helping nuclear weapons to be in the world.
Mr. President, during 2020 to 2022, CaixaBank has given credit and loans for almost EUR 100 million to Lion, to Boeing. Boeing, apart from civil aviation, they also create nuclear weapons, and they find. It was in a report by PAX and Profundo in December 2022. Dear shareholders, Boeing is manufacturing elements which are fundamental, like for the Trident standard are fundamental, and some other nuclear weapons. Let me offer you some more figures. 14x could the planet be destroyed with the nuclear weapons we have. Three out of four weapons wouldn't be manufactured without the aid of financial entities like CaixaBank.
In our environment, in which some leaders of some countries are threatening with the use of nuclear weapons, and this threat is beginning more and more real, it would be great for banks like CaixaBank to stop relating themselves with this kind of companies. Dear President, we offer today many figures. The only ones interesting for you were the ones representing your profits. Honestly, we would like to know how it is possible that you are not worried about contributing to these companies that can destroy the planet. Don't be accomplice anymore for this. Thank you.
Gracias. Okay. Floor goes to Álex Alfaro.
Buenos dias, señores, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders. My name is Álex Alfaro. I represent 1,050 shares. I am a shareholder, I am also a Valencia Football Club supporter. Your client, Valencia Football Club, is at a very critical patch. Here go my questions. Please, for the record. CaixaBank is the club's greatest creditor, has the key to saving Valencia Football Club. I'm sure you are aware of their losses, EUR 180 million since Lim took over. Their solvency being absolutely jeopardized. Do you understand CaixaBank is going to have bad reputation if you continue helping Peter Lim, who is the main shareholder of Valencia Football Club? Do you know that over the coming weeks or days, there will be a demonstration at the headquarters?
Do you think your client, Valencia, the shareholder of Valencia, do you think he is more important than other clients? What do you think Valencia supporters will say? Question number two: If a citizen like me were to lose their homes because of failing to pay their mortgage, of course, you would ask me to submit more warranties so that I can meet up and pay for my installments, my mortgage. What about Valencia Football Club with a loan given to them coming to EUR 103 million? Wouldn't you ask more warranties to support such credit? What are the interests that bring you close to Peter Lim? Comment number three: Imagine you have to make a choice, yeah? Between Peter Lim on the one hand, or thousands of clients who support Valencia Football Club. Football Club, sorry.
A question to the president. You were the president of CaixaBank when this affected... when Valencia was bought out or bought out by Peter Lim. Please note it was sold, you know, apparently on grounds that it was an interesting business to the bank. What is the interesting business with CaixaBank now and Peter Lim? What are you going to do? Are you going to ask the club to be sold out to others or bought out by others? Did you check or did you find out if Peter Lim is going to sell the club? What are you going to do, CaixaBank, to help Valencia? Valencia is possibly the most important asset in the region of Valencia. I am a simple client, but shareholders need to be given answers to all such questions. Please answer my questions. Valencia is not a simple client, all Valencia supporters, customers of CaixaBank, definitely need an answer. We shall now read the applications we got remotely.
Good morning or good afternoon. I want my intervention to be recorded. My name is Bish Empire. I speak on behalf of shareholders who have delegated their vote on me and also as the representative of the Balearic Islands, SIP, which is the majority union for CaixaBank on the Balearic Islands. I would like to congratulate our colleagues in CaixaBank, the best staff in the sector, in the bank industry, and the best asset. Thanks to them, it is down to their effort, commitment, and responsibility that we are a successful organization, and we submit good results today.
Last year, in the general meeting, we told you that on the Balearic Islands, there was a commercial pressure which was extreme and to the extent that even threats, pressures, and lack of empathy, tight control were measures commonly put in place. That lack of empathy or some offensive comments on the employees contribute to a bad atmosphere at the workplace. All this causes the employees to want to leave. When will you apply your next redundancy scheme? We know, you know, the people who work there on the Balearic Islands do great jobs and that they're making efforts to try and reverse the findings of the survey. You can count on us, SIP, if you want to get our enthusiasm back, that should only be possible without toxicity in the organization.
We also want to report on the treatment that some colleagues received, particularly when they protested, as concerning their salaries. There are other proposals which have not yet been addressed on the Balearic Islands, and the employees on the Balearic Islands have to pay much higher flat rental prices, and so their waning purchasing power should be addressed. We don't want to forget our customers either. Over the years, there's less complicity, there's less friendliness and with our customers because we cannot solve their problems. In fact, it is the clients who solve our problems. Last year, we were told about a new figure, the so-called senior consultant, on the basis of our protocol to be applied with senior citizens and disabled people. This should have never happened.
Our senior citizens today made it possible for our bank to grow years ago, the protocol should go further. Let me give you an example. Our senior citizens were sent a letter and told that our services could be offered up to half past two. The till seems to be closed much earlier. We say we were close to senior citizens. That's part of our slogan. Let's put it in to the practice. Let's take it to the practice. In fact, on the Balearic Islands, this has not come true. This contradicts our social policy in our social work, where we seem to encourage the participation of senior citizens in societies. What do you think about our slogans and/or the fact that some people have actually commented on senior citizens stealing our time?
Of course, word to the managing director, we need a strong bank committed to all customers, but also committed to the staff. That's why we ask you a change in your attitude so that work can be motivating enough. As our founder said, Francesc Moragas, work in the head, people in the heart. To finish with, I would like to address the president. Our bank has become a bank without a soul. You, as the maximum authority in the bank, you have the mission to bring the soul of CaixaBank back. You can rely on SIP to do that, to fulfill that mission. That was the intervention we got remotely.
Good morning, my name is Juan Prieto, voting consultant, and proxy for European Network. We give advice to our customers concerning pension schemes, for instance, in Banco Santander. First of all, I would like to say thank you to the bank for the opportunity to participate in the meeting remotely and for their transparency. We have voted against point seven, eight, and 10. The policy is well-structured. However, the level of proposed for remuneration is above levels and standards in Spain. There is an additional 5% increase this year. Besides, the existence of a managing director and executive president versus a single CEO in European institutions makes it more expensive. In spite of that, we have voted in favor of the remuneration document given the results attained and the concepts, the remuneration concepts. Thank you very much. I urge you to put my intervention in the minutes of meeting.
Okay, that is it for the intervention turn. We now close this intervention time for the shareholders attending face-to-face and those remotely. Next, we shall answer the questions posed, notwithstanding the answers that might be given in writing within a week.
Okay, we will first answer a question raised by some of the people who intervened concerning the headquarters and the location of CaixaBank headquarters. I will answer that matter first before I answer Josep de Marfa. Thank you, by the way, because I know you touched upon a different matter. Right. The headquarters. We are all aware and of course, I'm extremely proud of my of the Catalonian roots of CaixaBank.
I am absolutely convinced that the very many successful milestones by the bank over the years have a lot to do with entrepreneurial values, which we can find on those very roots. Throughout the years, La Caixa first and CaixaBank later deployed an extension expansion strategy which was most successful throughout Spain. The strategy was that successful that at this moment in time, we are the largest bank in Spain. Is a matter of fact, but we ought to acknowledge too that CaixaBank have consolidated their presence in Catalonia. We are an absolutely relevant player in many fields, you know, providing families and society as a whole with service. This is an evident example and a result of a growth strategy without harming our very roots.
When the merger took place, two years ago, both CaixaBank and Bankia had their headquarters in Valencia. At the time, the board was circulated, the board decided to continue having the headquarters in Valencia and that was for good, which is compatible with having two very powerful operational offices too in Madrid and Barcelona, which by the way, are working very, very well, running smoothly, as proved by the results we shared with you today. As for Mr. Marfa's intervention, he suggests a change in our articles of association so that general meetings can be held in Barcelona. I understand your intervention, let me make two comments. First of all, since this is not included on the agenda today, legally speaking, this matter cannot be considered by today's meeting.
Notwithstanding, your right for this matter to be addressed outside this general meeting or in a subsequent general meeting. Secondly, the evolution of regulation and our interpretation of it, and on the basis of our current articles of association, advise the general meeting be held in the current headquarters. Having said so, the possibility of following up things and living up to shareholders' rights on a remote basis, the fact that we can have remote general meetings, you know, doesn't make that matter so important if compared to the past. I would like to say thank you to Josefina Cortez for her comments. Thank you very much. Thank you indeed, because for the board and for the CaixaBank team, your words are really encouraging, and we are moved, particularly, yeah, when we talk about social work, social aspects.
I would like to answer Eduard Mestres Matero. Thank you. Thank you for being so loyal to our bank. Thank you for your positive comments in your intervention, and thank you for your recommendations, and your wish for all people to be customers of ours. Thank you. Thank you very much. It's really helpful. There are some aspects you touched upon in which I absolutely agree. You said the most important asset in the bank is their clients. Of course. It is clients who make our project legitimate. Without customers, we wouldn't have a general meeting. We wouldn't have a salary. We wouldn't be here. Secondly, I absolutely agree with you on what you said about the quality of the CaixaBank team.
Thanks to their work and effort, we are able to present these results, and I also thank you for the comments you made on our territorial director, sorry. Rest assured, as for the headquarters, rest assured, CaixaBank will stay in Valencia. The headquarters will stay in Valencia. Finally, I appreciate your suggestion, Mr. Juan Roig, as a potential candidate for the position of director. Thank you very much. Our board is already extremely competent and efficient now as it stands, and I'm ever so pleased to see you have an excellent opinion about CaixaForum. I regret you have a negative opinion about me. As I told you in the last general meeting, I would work for you to change my opinion, my view, your view of me. I will continue doing my best for you to change your mind.
I would also like to answer Mr. Joanes Evitanian Boadilla. Of course, indeed, what you said about the need for brotherhood, for good spirits, for people to be close, well, we agree with you indeed. In fact, it is a beautiful way of expressing our purpose, the brand purpose for 2022. Now, Antonio Rafael Garcia Zamora. He described his situation, and as he himself said, his situation is a consequence of a labor agreement, and therefore the bank and the unions at the time, back in 2020. Yes, indeed, what you describe is just so as a result of that agreement being reached.
I will reply. I will ask for the help of our CEO, to Francisco Albert and Luis Fernando Martín, both of the ICA, the union. I'll reply to both of them at the same time. I will reply to Mr. Francisco Albert on the comments on the situation, the corporate situation and financial situation of our bank. Our CEO will reply to both of them regarding the commissions and the services that have been mentioned. Talking about the different features, topics you have mentioned, you mentioned, rightly so, that the interest rates were a favorable element for the banking industry, and specifically for CaixaBank, of course. You said that the increase of this rate has been linked to the value of our shares.
You have said that the result of the increase of the price of our shares is because there's been an increase in the interest rate. If we take this into account, we have a knowledge that the higher the interest rates, the better for the value of our shares. Let me remind you some of the figures I offered you during my presentation, I can tell you how the price of the shares been different from the ones of our competitors. To begin with, in 2022, the increase of the dividends that we are here presenting was 58% if we compare it to the previous year. Secondly, since the closure 21 to till yesterday, our shares have been revalued 51%. The index of the European banking was so in 2%.
There is a huge difference between the 51% and the 2.1 and the 2%. If we go backwards to September 2020, when the merger operation was made public, our shares have increased the value in more than 200%. Secondly, you said that in this environment, which is so uncertain, if we have enough equity, and if we have a base for these certain times. I will offer you three figures for you to be at ease. First of all, as our CEO said, the level of delinquency is at a minimum moment, 7%, 12% of the non-performing loans. For you to have an idea, the European Central Bank requests a minimum equity to be held by the banks. There is a difference, a gap of 445 basic points.
More than one-third of our equity is exceeding the request of the European Central Bank. The right ratio that we also commented with our CEO, the REIN, that includes this kind of assets, it's 26.7% above the regulatory requirements for 2022. Mr. Francisco can be at ease. Now I will give the floor to our CEO to reply the rest of the questions. Thank you very much.
One of the questions about our sustainable funds, neither of the funds have lost their category as sustainable fund. We have 36% of our equity is on these funds. We have Article 8 and Article 9, which gives us the maximum degree of sustainability. Of course, we are still committed to this topic.
Regarding increase in commissions, I would say that commissions are stable and recurrent commission have fallen 0.3%. It's not been an increase of recurrent banking commission, the factor that is accelerating our profitability. Many commissions have been deleted. We are not having commission for credit cards or for accounts. We had 70% of our customers were not paying commissions for these kind of services. Also we have some programs for vulnerable, collective. We have 364,000 vulnerable accounts which are not paying any commission.
I think that this regard, we are doing the right thing. Regarding the impact of the increase of the interest rates, first of all, the increase of the interest rate is the decision of the European Central Bank, because we have an increase of inflation, and there are some other causes as well. This is not a decision made by individual banks. The Code of Good Practices was approved by the majority of the Congress. There was no vote saying no to this code. It was 289 votes. There is a consensus on this topic. We were the first bank to subscribe this code, and we are applying it.
Regarding the claims, like had been mentioned in some other intervention, we are the biggest bank in Spain, which, we are 50% bigger regarding the number of clients than the second-biggest bank in Spain. That means that in absolute terms, we will have a very high number of claims. Of course, we want to improve to offer better service and not to have so many claims. Of course, we analyze every single claim, and if, we really solve them. This is what we will do in the future. Of course, one of our goals is not to have so many claims. Finally, regarding the retribution of deposits, our philosophy is, in order to save, deposits for the long term are not the best solution. We have to look for other products for our customers.
If we know their goals, we know their circumstances, we can optimize savings strategy. Deposits are not really the best thing for this. Please be reminded that during six years, we had negative interest rates, and we have not repercuted those to our individual clients. Also, let me remind you about the international regulation, and the condition do not apply to single products, but to groups of products. In Germany, they have mortgage and loans to rates which are higher to the ones we have in Spain. In other countries, such as France and Portugal, there are some other programs are not for free. As I was saying before, that we have many customers which are not paying any commission. We have to compare figures as a whole. Thank you.
Now, we will reply to the representatives, the workers' representatives. We will do all of them together. Before that, let me say something about the comment of Ricard Ruiz, Mr. Ricard Ruiz , as said regarding the intervention. My comment is to tell you that we don't have shareholders, first-class shareholders and second-class shareholder. Every single shareholder has the same rights, and all can speak here, and the order of intervention is not relevant. We want to give an answer to all the shareholders and to treat them equally. Regarding interventions of the unions' representatives, let me do a brief introduction, and then I will give the floor to our CEO.
First of all, I would like to remind you, it is something I keep thinking, that the difference between excellent companies and those who are not excellent has to do with the staff and the people of those companies. I always think that. I mean, the difference between excellent banks and mediocre banks depends on their teams, I think this will be the situation forever, even in the future, even though if we are more and more digitalized. From this point of view, if we look at the commitment and the behavior of CaixaBank team, we have to say here that we are sure we have an extraordinary team. We've seen it during the last years, right now, and during the pandemic, for instance, that we have to make a big effort. The offices were open.
We've seen again these efforts in the management, in the successful management of the biggest merger of our countries. That's why, on my behalf and on the behalf of the full Board of Directors, I want to say thank you again to all our colleagues that made our results possible. As well, I would like to share with you a couple of remarks. First of all, the environment is very competitive, and we have competition which are very powerful. We have traditional competitors, and we also have new competitors. In order to address this situation, we need a high performance organization with a high performance team. As we have done it always here, to have a high performance team, we have to have very ambitious goals, but those are goals that we can achieve.
Because only those kind of teams can achieve those kind of goals. This demand has to be done respecting people, and it should be a reference, and I'm sure that it is the reference for the management of teams in our entity. I would like to highlight that our dialogue, our dialogue facilities, I mean, it is very important for me because we live in an atmosphere in our company which is very flexible. During the last years, we have reached some agreements which are very valuable and shows us the way ahead in the future. I'll give the floor now to our CEO.
Well, yes. I am very happy to hear that many of the union representatives are glad from the results of our entity. These are good news for the shareholders, for the directors, and as the president said, of course, we have to say thank you to the effort of all the staff. With the closure of 2022, there are three more factors which had been quite difficult. We can make difficult our work. The pandemic, the first one, the second would be the merger, and the third one, the negative interest rates that of course, it has a strong impact on our activity. We are leaving those three factors behind.
It is true that we are beginning a new stage for our entity, and we have to take advantage of this new stage in order to improve the service we provide to our clients, because our customers are everything for us, and I'm very glad to have hear from unions that they want us to focus on our customers. In this regard, we have to be very clear. Our goal is to improve our customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, whenever there is a merger, it requires effort from the workers, but it also can be a bit difficult for our customers. We have seen an improvement in our internal indicators on the satisfaction of our clients, and this really encourages us to work on quality for all of us, for all of our staff.
Well, we are looking forward to improve even more our performance, and we are aware that we have to do that. These three factors I mentioned, pandemics, merger and negative interest rates, we know that this has been an effort for the staff. Now when we are changing and we are leaving all this behind, we have the opportunity to improve the service to the customer and to improve the professional satisfaction of our workers. I think this is an opportunity, and also we are obliged to do it as board of directors. You mentioned our survey, and yes, we do that in order to see what's the situation and what improvements can be done when looking to the future. You didn't mention that 67% says that they want to go on working in CaixaBank.
Some say that You can see that some things are very positive like safety, and values, and social benefits. Of course, there's room for improvement because after the complex and huge merger that we have been doing, it's logical that we have some ideas to improve, we want to have some new initiatives to improve this topic. It's a great opportunity, as I said, it's also our obligation. Commercial pressure. It is clear that what we shouldn't do, as our President said before, is that we cannot slow down. We have the need in the environment to keep this key of success because our entity has always worked very hard. Of course, we can always manage this intensity in several ways, we will look for a way in the new environment that will make it compatible with a good atmosphere.
The reality is that the commercial and financial challenges had been complied with during the years. In this new environment, we will keep the will to work together with our staff, and that will give us no doubt, good service, good results, and a motivated staff. There's been some comments by some unions regarding the difference on the wages and salaries depending the origin of people. Well, we have a commitment with the staff, and after every merger that we have done, we have made the salaries equal. We are doing this in a progressive way. It will take us something like five years, as we agreed, and well, this was what was needed for this kind of operation. Of course, we are committed to this increase of salaries.
It's been already two years since we merged, but we are on the right way. The high interest rates for the loans to workers has been mentioned, but this is regulated in our agreements, and we've launched a new commercial offer with a fixed rate, and the variable rate is 0.12%, which are very attractive rates because, of course, we want to help our workers regarding this. As far as the increase in wages and salaries, I think we've worked with responsibility. It's a complex situation, and by the collective bargain with some conditions, we, on our hand, have improved the conditions as the inflation has high rocketed.
Just to mention that increases which have been offered for the lower quality staff and the most affected by the inflation because they don't have so much purchase power, we are moving from a four to... It's a 4% more than the 1% that was approved in the collective bargain. I would like to tell you that we are ready to work together and in a constructive way with the union representatives to make this group a better group. We did this in the past, and we will do it in the future. Now we will reply to the interventions of Jordi Calvo and Javier Toca.
Yes, the interventions by Banca Armada, we're going to have a joint answer, a single answer for both interventions. Please let me express that CaixaBank is fully committed to ensuring human rights. We apply the principles of responsible banking and other measures by the United Nations. As for our intervention in the defense sector, which is indeed a key industry, and particularly taking into account the events in Ukraine, all our principles are public. They are included in a policy which is accessible to all of you on our website.
Any funding given by CaixaBank or its group companies complies with that policy, and that policy includes, inter alia, the fact that there is no company in the group who is related to controversial arm manufacturers or companies that sell arms to countries with war conflicts, and that we are not intermediaries to any of such parties. We only work and liaise with those who comply with certain criteria, and we do not fund in countries which are likely to violate human rights. Thank you. My answer to Mr. Alfaro. First of all, let me underline the strong bonds between CaixaBank and Valencian Society. First of all, from a commercial point of view, we are well aware we are a reference bank in the region of Valencia and in the province, sorry, of Valencia and in Valencia City.
We are very proud of it, and we are aware of our high accountability. We are accountable in front of more than a million clients, and we are particularly accountable as regards our support to the Valencian entrepreneurial fabric. Beyond such links and relationships, we are extremely linked, emotionally speaking, with Valencia, first of all, because our headquarters are here, and we are ever so proud of that. It has said over and over, we are here to stay. Secondly, those emotional bonds cause us to put in place actions for the service of the society we are so close to. Let me give you just some examples. With our social work in Fundación La Caixa, last year, we supported 139 entities.
Almost 1,000 volunteers from CaixaBank helped support almost 1,000 projects in 2022. Apart from what I said earlier, those volunteers have had a positive impact on almost 100,000 people. We are also sponsoring an activity which does vertebrate the region music bands through CaixaBank Escolta València. Grants have been given to music students and to students in general. We are also major or the main sponsor of Pilota Valenciana, Valencian Ball. Our main shareholder, Fundación La Caixa, last summer opened a CaixaForum València. Well, examples abound, but I suppose this is enough to demonstrate, to really show our commitment to Valencia society, to Valencian people, which is only the result of our tight emotional bonds. It is within that context that I would like to answer you, Mr. Alfaro.
On that basis, yes, we are well aware that Valencia Football Club means a lot to a great deal of people in Valencia, though I am convinced that for basic deontological reasons, we shall not speak about our relationships with our customers. Of course, our reputation is most important, but its main pillar or foundation is professionality, which means we are to strictly observe all such confidentiality principles, and that should be and stay a guiding principle to us in the future too. As for the comments made by Mr. Alfaro on the possible sellout of Valencia, well, we're not the owners of the club, and I take it, I understand you to address them, the owners, the current owners of the club.
Just to put it bluntly, we are merely a bank, an entity which has given credit to a private company who is managed by a number of people. We are therefore not accountable. We are therefore not entitled to participate in their management. I can assure you, Mr. Alfaro, we agree with you. I agree with you. We wish Valencia Club, the football, the best, not only from an economic point of view or a financial point of view, but also from a sporting point of view and a social point of view. I shall now move on to the last question, Mr. Juan Prieto. I really appreciate the tone in your intervention. I would like to make four comments.
One, all your references, on your email, included the way we define and apply our remuneration policy. The remuneration policy, as you surely know, is up to a proposal put together by the Remuneration Committee, in turn advised by external consultants, by highly prestigious external consultants, and among their duties and functions, they compare, they do benchmarking between our remuneration policy and the competition, our competitors. On the basis of such analysis, clearly, the salaries of our directors are lower than those in the market. The proxies, given their opinion on this matter, seem to agree, too, on the occasion of the general meeting. I am mentioning the proxies, Juan Prieto, Mr. Juan Prieto, because you indeed created one of them. A couple of comments now.
Last year, our remuneration policy in the board was voted against only by 2% of shareholders. Today, for item seven, eight, 10, most proxies, the largest proxies recommend a positive vote on such items. This puts an end to the intervention session. Now we move on to reading the summary of the resolutions. Since the information and documents proposed to this board is available to the shareholders, pursuant to Article 19 of our meeting regulations, we will only share a short summary of the resolutions. Similarly, as we previously said, we remind you that the voting process consists in the following. After reading the summary of the resolutions, the based on our regulation, the president shall declare approved or passed those resolutions for which the necessary number of votes has been achieved.
As, and this will be, of course, included in the minutes. Voting is possible till the voting period comes to an end, of course. We ask those who have not yet voted to bring their cards and do their voting. Similarly, those remotely connected, if they want to vote, we hope this voting to take into account that they should do it on the platform. We remind you that positive votes will be those of the shareholders and attendees or proxies, whether face-to-face or remotely, who do not object or who do not abstain, and who do not leave the room. Let me remind you can only vote once. Okay, we shall start with the proposals. Item number one, approval of the individual consolidated financial statements and the respective management reports for the year ending on December 31st, 2022.
Approval of individual financial statements of CaixaBank, comprising the balance sheets, the statement of profit and loss, which includes the statement of recognized income and expenses, which has been reviewed as per corresponding rules. We also suggest the approval of the Board of Directors Management during the year, December 2022. Number four, approval of the allocation of the individual net profit coming to EUR 3,200,400, as with a breakdown which is included in the documents. Dividends, EUR 1.7 million, sorry. Reserves, EUR 682 billion. The dividend of that profit will be made effective to shareholders as from April 12th. This is equivalent to 55% of the net consolidated revenues, as per our current dividend policy.
This is an estimation because the total amount will be reduced on the basis of the self-portfolio shares CaixaBank may have at that moment in time. The non-distributed dividends will also include the banking reserves. We also inform of the fact that EUR 1,400 million are not necessarily to be distributed, which is equivalent to 20% of the current share capital. This will be considered as a legal reserve. Item number five, re-election of the company's accounts auditor and its consolidated group for 2024. The selected candidate for re-election is PricewaterhouseCoopers. Point number six. 6.1, re-election of Gonzalo Gortázar Rotaeche as a member of the board, executive director, for a period of four years, following the favorable report issued by the Appointments and Sustainability Committee.
6.2, re-election of Cristina Garmendia Mendizábal as a member of the board in a position as an independent director for four years, following the proposal of the Appointments and Sustainability Committee. three, re-election of María Amparo Moraleda Martínez, for a member of the board as an independent director for four years after the proposal of the same commission. Point number four, Peter Löscher is proposed as a member of the Board of Directors as an independent director for four years, following the proposal by the Appointments and Sustainability Committee to fill the vacancy left by Mr. John Reid, who resigned as a director. The appointment of Mr. Löscher is subject to verification of his suitability as a director.
Should that check not be favorable, or should he not accept the position, this vacancy on the board will be filled either by co-optation of another candidate by the board or by appointment in a following general meeting. The intention of the general meeting being to keep the number of members in the board as 15. Seven, approval of the amendment to the remuneration policy of the board of directors. We will first consider this as described and stated as per the document point seven on the agenda. Approval of the amendment to the remuneration policy of the board of directors, as approved in the last general meeting, which will be applicable since it is passed by the board until 2025. The policy specifies separately the remuneration of the directors and their remuneration for executive functions.
Including a motivated proposal together with the policy text and the report by the Remuneration Committee. Eight, as foreseen in Article 14 of our articles of associations, this has been set as EUR 3,071,250. This is the maximum annual fixed amount of remuneration for all directors. Point nine, delivery of shares to executive directors as payment of the variable components under the company's remuneration system, including our pluriannual remuneration policy. The remuneration scheme with multi-year metrics for year 2024 and the following five years, based on the set timeline. A maximum of EUR 959,133 before taxes, and we hold this assuming that the group and the target variable remuneration amount remain unchanged.
Point number 10, approval of the maximum level of variable remuneration payable to employees whose professional activities have a significant impact on the company's risk profile. This can reach up to 100%, up to 200% of the fixed component of the total remuneration. This will be voted. Point 11, authorization and delegation of powers to interpret, correct, supplement, implement, and develop the resolutions adopted by the general meeting to register public deeds for their fruitful purpose. 12, consultative vote in the annual report, the directors remuneration report for financial year 2022, which is already available to shareholders. Okay, this is it for the summary of the resolutions. Mr. President, we shall now report on the issuance of shares which could eventually become CaixaBank shares.
We inform and report on the report submitted in this respect for a total value of EUR 750 million. This was approved by the council, sorry, by the board, and then passed by the general meeting held on May 14, 2021, as published in this report by the administrators or by directors, was made available to the shareholders following issuance last March 13th. As you know, we are to publicize some sanctions according to bank law, based on bank law, we shall report that sanctions have been imposed on the company. We need to pay EUR 150,000 for some breaches concerning the updated information to be given to Banco de España, the Bank of Spain. Okay, this is the end of the voting.
Those of you not having voted, please proceed to vote so that you can exercise your voting rights, and so the intervention term will be closed. Well, right now, the time for voting on the resolution is finished by the shareholders and their representatives attending the general meeting, both on site and online. All of them has been approved according to the law. N ow I will give the floor to Secretary.
Due to technical reasons, as we are having this on-site meeting and simultaneously an virtual meeting, the detailed information regarding the counting of the votes of the shareholders and the representatives and those who have voted remotely, will be published in the society website five days after this meeting, following the corporate, the Spanish corporate law.