Good morning again, dear shareholders, bon dia. I would like to thank you again for your attendance, both to the people that are here with us in this hall and also those that are following us telematically. It's a great pleasure and honor to me to be here with all of you as Chairman of Caixa of America. And first of all, I would like to thank you warmly for your trust. Holding a general meeting is always a very important occasion.
And this time is especially so because we are holding the 1st shareholders meeting of Caixabank, after completing the legal merger with Bankia, a merger that you approved last December with a support that is over 99% in the boards of both banks. After this landmark, AixaBank becomes the 1st financial group in our country, with a clear intention to become leaders in the Iberian Peninsula. And this is the result of the Trust given by more than 21,000,000 customers in Spain and Portugal. And with the backing of all of you, dear holders. I'm going to structure my address in 3 different sections.
First of all, I will make a brief review of the last financial media. Then I will refer to our responsible and sustainable management model. And thirdly, I will share with you some thoughts about the future after my address, our CEO will analyze in detail the evolution of the business and the annual account that we present for your consideration. Last financial year was incredibly complex. We had to face an unprecedented Healthcare Crisis that is still leaving and in terms mark both in terms of loss of human lives and also economic and social impacts.
All economic sectors suffered in a higher or lower extent the effects of strict confinement and and this is the impact on consumption and investment. This is reflected on unprecedented declines in the gross domestic product. Luckily, they said we applied support measures that are bigger than ever before and that managed to cushion the most harsh effects. The banking sector is really cycled and it wasn't immune to the pandemic nor its consequence. This had a clear effect on volumes, income, turnover and of course, the potential risk management.
However, in this crisis, the situation of the banking center was quite different to the previous one that took place in 2,008. And thanks to the efforts made in the recent years, we had a strong position to be able to support families and companies. This financial strength and resilience, together with the efforts and commitments developed the commitment shown by the Caixabank team, made us be close to the customers and the society as in the moment that they most needed us because those support measures implemented by our bank were had a great outreach as it will be explained by our CEO later on. This work is behind the figures that the CEO will present later on for its approval in this general meeting. Caixabank's figures in the 2020 financial year show, 1st of all, a great commercial and strength with a growth in volumes and market shares, a great robustness of the balance sheet and profitability that is adjusted to the environment.
This year was closed with an attributable net profit of 1 €38,000,000,000 after granting extraordinary provisions of EUR 1,200,000. Regarding the dividend distribution and in line with the recommendation of the European Central Bank about limiting the payment, We propose a distribution of dividends in cash of €0.268 of euro gross per share against profits of 2020 financial year. To finish my review of the last year, I'm going to make reference to the most relevant event of the year, the merger of Caixa Banca Banca, which you, all our dear shareholders, approved last December. This merger is our strategic response to the enormous challenges we face as a sector. I will give more details later on.
With the merger, we intend to reach a critical size to be able to improve efficiency, to have a higher investment capacity in Technology and Innovation. Therefore, we will be more robust. We will have a strongly provisioned and highly capitalized balance sheet to face the crisis and to support families and companies and ultimately the society. Thirdly, We have a sustainable profitability, thanks to a balanced business mix with a high capacity to generate diversified income. We pursue these goals based on a common value set and counter, which cautions the risk of implementation of any merger process.
Our merger fulfills all those objectives. It's a unique product. After the merger, we have an excellent platform, a new Caixabank that is more resilient. And this way, we can face the future from my privileged initial position, but this is just a starting point. Our task as managers is to guarantee sustainability of the project in the future.
Then I will come to the 2nd part of my presentation.
I have wished that society finds our work to be useful. And to do this, we don't only need Results, they have to be based on responsible management so that our clients are satisfied With this objective, we wish to manage our organization with 2 The references are an excellent corporate governance and a second, clear commitment with society. Now together with this and what we want to do with our clients, we wish to meet their financial needs and offer them Service that is excellent. In short, a bank they can trust. Now starting with a corporate bank, I firmly believe that a Corporate governance, that is excellent.
This is a condition necessary for the sustainability of a project. And for this, and referring to the Board of Directors, I would like to thank my predecessor, Mr. Jordi Guel, for his great work as President of this Board and what he's Done in the over the recent years in during very complex periods. Going back to the board and its composition, I want to assure you we are before an excellent board with fantastic curriculums, and they represent 60% of the independent board members. Similarly, I would like to point out that 40% of the board is formed by women with a fantastic professional trajectory.
And with this, we have established and met 40% quota according to the good governance code for 2022. Hence, we should be proud, I think, with To have in our midst an excellent board with people that have enormous experience And unquestionable commitment. The second pillar of our management is one of social responsibility. It is a distinctive feature CaixaBank. Our social commitment is part of the DNA of our bank.
It's part of our origin. It goes all the way back to our origin. And our financial approach is a measure of our social action. We approach initiatives such as Microbank, the biggest microcredit bank in Europe, which offers finance to families and micro companies, which otherwise would not have finance. We believe in a strong financial inclusion of people.
And we are present in 365 municipalities, where we are the only banking institution. We are concerned with those who are vulnerable. We have 15 1800 dwellings rented out for people in those characteristics. We indeed are very proud of our relationship with Fundacion Acacia, the foundation, whereby we do thousands of social projects Throughout all of the territory we operate in, 6,900 organizations benefited this from this year all over Spain last year. In terms of the environment, we have a strong commitment with sustainability, environmental sustainability.
Caixabank is committed and has been for many years for the World Pact, the UNEP, the FI, the principles of Responsible Banking, the United Nations, the Ecuador Principles, among others. We also got involved Last month in net zero banking, which has been pushed by the United Nations. And we are working towards a 2,050 The objective, which indicates there will be a 0 CO2 emissions. From the business itself, We have specialized groups working hard on sustainability. We are very active in the SEG markets as financers and also as issue an issuing body.
We also have Committed to green and social issues to the value of €5,000,000,000 €5,000,000,000 excuse me, for the 2021 Period. We are the 1st bank in Europe for that volume. We are doing newest according to the terms of the DJSI principles. And we are abiding by the ISS, international agency, in 3 dimensions: environment, social issues and governance. And of course, We are all about the equality of between men and women as part of our identity.
And we have obtained a maximum Score for the Bloomberg Equality Index, and we are proud of that. On these two pillars, Excellent corporate governance and our social responsibility has meant it has reinforced the fact that we are close to our clients. We all are all about giving good service to our clients, our Acacia Bank clients, who receive us as the best financial partner because Clients legitimize our role, our presence. And an excellent service for all and each client is the first step towards social responsibility. This is the framework in which we're operating in.
It will allow us success and be able to meet the challenges ahead. The financial sector, and I know I'll be moving on to the 3rd part of my is already facing and has been facing for some time some incredible challenges. The crisis provoked by the world pandemic is really affecting our competitive situation. The first great challenge It has to do with the presence of negative interest rates. And we've been facing this for over 5 years.
And we've Monetary policy in view of this pandemic crisis has pushed us towards these negative interest levels never seen And this seems to be a prolonged thing and will be for some time. In fact, for the Euribor at 12 months, We don't see any change until 2024. This situation is therefore perhaps has been is no longer considered as a temporary situation and now more seen as a structural change in our business. And this is making us rethink our business model Because certain things are no longer profitable, certain activities. And this affects our income sources.
And we've been aware of this for some time, and we have forecast this accordingly. In the second We are looking at our technological revolution. This revolution affects our chain bill The idea of building value along the chain, it affects our infrastructures and it affects our client relationships. If we look at our infrastructures, We realized that we need a deep reconfiguration of our banking core and a migration from traditional Storage of data towards the cloud. That is imperative.
This will enable To make us to make better use of the data, thanks to artificial intelligence, and we will therefore move better towards a competitive We have enormous competitors, big competitors, who outside of the even these financial They'll be doing this through the ex novo banking activity without the legacies That are faced by traditional banks. Now in order to respond to this challenge, we need to attract talent with different Different to the traditional profiles of before where talent has been recruited. We need to have that financial Muscle to make the necessary changes and still enable us to make an attractive project For clients and still attract client talent. In 3rd place, We are in a setting of enormous competition. And when I mean enormous competition, it means that We have to consider 2 planes.
The first is the financing plane. In this chapter, we are facing a growth, Just singular growth of non banking competitors, which is known as shadow banking. These shadow bankers are also benefiting from the conditions where they don't face the same requirements as we do. I just want to give you a fact. According to the European Systemic Risk Board, at the close of 2019, 40% Our financial active assets in the European system, that's €45,000,000,000 were controlled by financial Entities different to banks, these shadow banks.
The second part of this is the competition that's happened in the And in the retail banking sector, where this retro feedback of change in the habits of clients and the technological revolution is creating Barriers to for entry into the sector. It's true that banks have responded technologically, But this critical mess offered by the merger has enabled us to a point to keep on leading and keeping ahead of these changes. So on the one hand, we have barriers to entry, but we're also having to maximize our technological adventures. These new competitors are looking for new opportunistic niches of the market. And this often enables them to have competitive advantages compared to the traditional operator.
I really believe that competition is good. It's good for clients. It's good for banks because it makes us be stronger to build up our muscles, really, And therefore, we can improve. And I've also felt that we need to establish different regulatory Frameworks and arbitration methods and approaches that will tackle things as we saw in the previous This is going to be the milieu in which we'll be working in the coming years. And it is, not to be doubted that Our strategic decision as an entity will be strengthened if a starting point if we take all these points I've mentioned Before, looking toward the future, our decisions we need to make decisions which will be tough.
But at the same time, we need to be an organization that is very flexible and able to respond quickly to A changing environment, a changing setting. This is a challenge of enormous dimensions. It's a challenge where [SPEAKER UNIDENTIFIED COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE:] We already have some very strong points in our favor. First, we have 21,000,000 clients in Spain and Portugal. This is the most important value of our bank.
And preserving this and incrementing it should be our main objective, I We also have in 2nd place, and I think this is also very important, an approximation towards the idea of Sustainable Banking and a close relationship with the foundation known as Fundacion La Caixa, maintaining this differential factor is for us a great Permanent guide. And we also have enormous financial strength, a solid balance and a strong capital position above the regulatory requirements that have been set upon us and this will strengthen any future Upsets. And of course, we have an excellent team working, which is the key ingredient for any firm. So this merger that we Requires a resizing, a redimension of our staff to preserve The biggest number possible of staff, but also to think of sustainability in the future. And right now, we are in a process with worker representation, worker representation specialists where agreements are being reached.
And I'm very sure that we'll be reaching these agreements with workers and staff. It's a delicate situation, of course. It creates uncertainty for our colleagues, for our team, and we need to do this as swiftly as We will manage the whole process, convince with the idea of our team. It is thanks to our team We are where we are, that we have achieved so much. This is the ethos of CaixaBank.
And furthermore, We should all be conscious that the strength of CaixaBank has allowed us to move towards the future with realism, but also with trust and confidence Because I have no doubts personally whatsoever that I think we are more technologically bank, a more digitalized bank. I still am convinced that people have enormous role to play to contribute. People have enormous role to play to contribute because people, their capacities, talents and commitment is a factor It's going to differentiate excellent entities, bank entities from the mediocre ones. And therefore, it's going to be a priority for us to manage a good team, to have Good team, and it's one that needs to have a vision of participation toward looking at sustainability and our project. With this, I'd like to finish our presentation.
In this first occasion that I am appearing before you, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to share a really realistic message, and that is a message of congratulating us, congratulating ourselves. Thanks So our excellent situation, thanks to our merger and the integration of 2 organizations that we have seen. But As we know, our industry, our sector has enormous challenges to face. And therefore, I feel we have the skills, the capacity, the The ability to get on with it, to keep on managing. Management required of us will require the best that we can give To the organization, and I'm sure we will be able to lead the process in this industry and do that do so with enormous closeness [SPEAKER MARIA CAROLINA DYBECK HAPPE:] To our clients, we will be at the center of their attention.
Thank you very much.
Dear Chairman the Directors the Shareholders, It's always a pleasure to meet you come back to Valencia to lead this General Shareholders Meeting. And today, it's even more so after the merger that was agreed on this end hold by all of you last December that was executed this This transaction, it's places us on a very strong position. Moreover, it stands the shareholder base at Caixabank in 127,000 shareholders, reaching a total of 686,000 shareholders giving support to the project. In today's address, I will make reference to the priorities of the Caixabank Group for 2021 in I guess the backdrop of this integration. And previously to that, I will make a review of the most relevant facts of the last financial year that we are closing today and submitting to your approval.
2020 was an absolutely exceptional year conditioned by the pandemic in which we have demonstrated that we are next and close to the customers at the service of society as a whole. On the other hand, it's been and highly intensive year of activity with customers where we managed to increase both turnover and Chez, we generated earnings and we reinforced our balance sheet. Last but not least, it was the year of the merger agreement that as our Chairman has just pointed out is a decisive step forward in the reach, competitive, advanced teach and sustainability of the Caixa Group's project. As a courtesy to the many Spanish speaking shareholders. I will continue my speech in Spanish.
He was speaking in Catalan. 2020 was a particularly difficult financial year for all of us, a year conditioned by the health care crisis, economic crisis conditioned by the COVID-nineteen pandemic from which we haven't come out yet. Thanks to the dedication of thousands of professionals and the intense work of our team Caixa Bank kept its office network fully operative even in the worst moments of the pandemic to service to serve and support our customers. We made a very important effort to keep operating with normality and efficiency and so as to guarantee that liquidity and public subsidies reach families and companies. As a summary, I would like to highlight that the 500,000 loan moratorium granted until March last year in Spain and Portugal totaling €17,500,000,000 amount to €615,000 if we take into account Banques once.
In Spain, we gave €13,300,000,000 in publicly guaranteed loans. Last year, we approved funding for even more than €83,000,000,000 From the onset of the crisis, we also took another significant measures so as to support our customers such as advanced payment of benefits for nearly 4,000,000 people in terms of temporary layoffs, employment insurances or retirement pensions. Preferential attention and follow-up of the elder population was among one among our most important priorities. Additionally, our financial activity Caixabank put 2 part in other initiatives highlighting the rent payment cancellation for families that were really vulnerable. I insist on cancellation of debts, people that couldn't face paying their rents.
Also, Viracao and Sebuercaes Deslas contributed with more than €8,500,000 to the creation of a solidarity fund that assures the health care professionals in a freeway. As a consequence of the intense work of our with our customer base, the turnover grew in a considerable way. The healthy credit portfolio that is without auto assets, grew in 7.6% and the customer funds did so in 8.1%. Funding 2 companies, a segment of the economy that required most a lot of credit, the last year increasing 17.6 percent to 106 point €1,000,000 and the Spanish share in this segment improved 110 basis points. Regarding savings, long term Savings Management, the growth was 3.9 percent up to €166,000,000,000 and the share in Spain grew to 23.3 an efficient counseling model and the trust placed by our customers in our bank to managed these type of assets were the key factors in that evolution.
In our neighboring country, PPI showed a similar performance and consequently a very important and interesting results in last year with important growth interactivity with its traditional prudential risk management kept its default ratio in 2.2 percent. Once again, it's become a benchmark in asset quality. Likewise, it showed commitment with economy and Portuguese society with the granting up to March of more than 6,000 €1,000,000 in moratorium to loan moratorium to families and companies so as to improve their financial situation and to favor the well, preservation of the productive sector. Regarding the income statement, the most remarkable aspect is its resilience that allowed to achieve recurrent revenues. In total, the interest income, the fees and commissions, the so called core income kept more or less stable last year, although with an asymmetrical behavior.
The net interest income and fees and commissions went down 1%, affected by the lower recurrent activity in the part of the year and the deterioration in the interest rate curve. However, on the other hand, the insurance operation contributed very well to the group's revenues, the rest of the incomes that is the earnings of our investees, financial operations and other Brothers fell considerably affected by the market volatility and the impact of the pandemic. Against this Backdrop, it was very important to manage and to contain operating expenses that were reducing 4%. Staff cost declined by 4.6 percent, thus materializing savings agreed in the labor agreement of 20 'nineteen and also early retirements last year. Also overhead costs went down 4%.
As a result of the evolution in the income and expenditure, the core cost to income ratio that is the positioned between recurring cost and basic income, improved in the year to totaling 55.1 percent. This ratio in this ratio, we need to keep focused on improving the sustainability of our activity in future. I will continue with the expenditure lines. I would like to focus on provisions and loss of assets, both lines affected by extraordinary items. The amount of provisions equaled EUR 2,200,000,000 against EUR 178,000,000 in 2019.
This is a very important increase that, well, is a result of a prudential consideration and the anticipation so as to facilitate or to cushion or lessen the potential economic impacts due to default late payment of loans. This provision gives us a lot Trust to be able to face adverse scenarios. Those Losses in terms of lower assets were compensated. On the one hand, we have the gains from the sale of 29 percent of our investee in payment means commercial global payments announced last July that was recorded in the last quarter. On the other hand, the consolidation of our investee in Erste Bank that generated a negative entry for a similar amount.
So the results last year were €1,300,000,000 which amounts to a fall in or diminishing in 19% and ROTE, the tangible profitability in terms of tangible capital, was 6.1%. It is not the profitability it was prior to, but given the conditions, this level quite reasonable and also superior to the rest of the sector. I will move on to speak about the balance sheet metrics. Thanks to the intense and systematic management, we managed to reduce the default rate, the NPLs. And this has been so since 2013.
In the last quarter of the year, NPLs diminished in 5.3 percent, taking into account a part of the moratorium were finished in this period. They finished this interest only period. This data is quite positive in fact. In most of the moratoria granted when we had to resume payments at the due date, we did so with absolute normality, taking into account the commitment of our customers and the solidity. Liquidity as always was very high and closed the year at EUR 114,000,000,000.
Debt issuance in 2020 were EUR 3,700,000,000 and in particular, I highlight a green bond and a social bond linked to the contribution to sustainable development goals of this United Nations that had a very important demand in favorable conditions. In terms of solvency, we closed the year 2020 on a strong note, reaching a CET1 ratio of 13.6 with an increase of 1.6 basis points compared to 2019. This level is much higher, about 4.5 basis to our capital regulatory capital requirement. Therefore, we have a clear robust position with excess a separate of approximately €8,000,000,000 I move on to priorities for this year. In 2021, despite the we can be optimistic regarding the vaccination process.
However, our circumstances are complicated. Our Chairman referred to that some minutes before. Negative interest rates, the change of behavior in our customer base whose digitalization is boosted, accelerated the increasing of competition, particularly in credit granted as a consequences of the liquidity excess in the system and as a consequence of the entry of new players. So this increased the pressure of on the already narrow margins. And finally, the economic and sustainable consequences of this pandemic are not strictly completely yet completely visible yet, which generates uncertainty about their impact on the financial system at mid and long term.
So against this backdrop, our commitment is to keep on supporting the economy, families and the society with a strong financial position and above all, a highly qualified team, a highly committed team. We link the integration project with Bankia, which provide us with more outreach, capacity and sustainability. Therefore, materializing this integration of businesses, employments, employees and systems is will be one of our undeniable goals for this financial year. And we have to do so by keeping the best quality of service to our customers. Moreover, we want to keep on contributing actively to the recovery.
And of course we want to be a benchmark in socially responsible banking. The legal merger that took place on March 26. Since then, we've become a single bank. Although the integration of all the systems will foresee really be finished on the last quarter. Meanwhile, we are working intensely to integrate departments, equipment teams, policies and processes and other elements that don't depend strictly on systems.
The dimension model and the model of segment specialization at Caixabank has proven successful because it allowed us to align the proximity to their customer with economies of scale and the investment capability that is necessary to innovate. So we have an extraordinary opportunity to keep boosting our model, which works very well and to extend it to more customers. I'm sure that we will manage that because we have a very good initial positions and we are very strong. We have very strong market shares around 25% in credits and deposit and also in mutual funds. In some specific segments such as mortgages, they are even higher 21% and for savings, long term service 21%.
We manage a turnover, including customer funds and the credit portfolio that surpasses EUR 943,000 €9,700,000,000 sorry. A link to the aforementioned, We have the strongest distribution platform in the country, which combines physical popularity with important digital capacities. We are starting up a new phase linked to our traditional customer orientation. This places us in a unique position to keep on gaining efficiency commercially and keep on developing our innovative services at the best costed at the same time to realize the synergies of €770,000,000 in cost and 2 Topic is the restructuring plan that is being negotiated with trade union representatives right now. Will seek to actively reach a reasonable agreement that guarantees competitiveness, that guarantees re location of people leaving our bank, we will provide them with the adequate training so that they can find new placements.
Achieving operational integration in an efficient way is a priority for all of us. This will allow us to align processes and products and to accelerate and to boost this model that works with the customer base that is over EUR 90,000,000 in Spain. We have an important position potential and our aim is to take advantage of all our expertise in integrations to make it a big success. The scale and the size give us the best position to keep on the sustainability of the business in a crisis that is taking too long to disappeared. Last week, we presented the results of the Q1 and we highlighted a strong position of our balance sheet between January March, we increased the total liquid assets in more than €32,000,000,000 Thanks to the integration with Bankia regarding solvency, the common equity Tier 1 ratio was 14.1% And after the extraordinary effect of the merger, we still have to show the impact of costs associated to the integration, but taking into account a very conservative stands applying all those impacts.
At the same time, the capital ratio will be closer to 12%, which is above the aim announced when we presented this merger. On the other hand, the NPAs this quarter was practically stable. And even considering including the integration with Bankia, the default rate and the coverage rate, we have one of the best figures of all the banking system. Regarding the income statement. The most remarkable aspect in the Q1 is that the recurrent earnings are amount to €540,000,000 against the €90,000,000 recorded in the same period last year.
After making provisions to anticipate the future impacts associated to COVID-nineteen. It is important to highlight that this result doesn't incorporate the result from the Banca's activity because I mean in booking terms, Banca's activity will start on the 1st April. An extraordinary aspect of the quarterly result that I would like to emphasize is the bad will generated after Banquo's merger by €4,300,000,000 I must insist, as I said, 1 week ago, this figure doesn't imply any cash income. It doesn't respond to any real economic result. So our recurring profit is €514,000,000 as I said before.
This result and the future result of CaixaBank's combined with the social orientation and sustainability aims that has been defined our group from its inception. This will this and will continue to be a priority. We were creating This bank was founded more than a century ago with the aim to promote welfare, social welfare, savings and with and now we have a much bigger ambition to support the progress of the whole community, especially the more vulnerable groups with social projects which are very tangible. In the path towards this moment, many other Entities were joined to us, to La Caixa and to bank and we integrated them in the same spirit. The merger between Caixa Banc and Bankia, the biggest one in our history, will not be different because we share the same values.
Recently, the social responsibility of many companies changed for the better, so as to adopt an attitude and a discourse that we never left behind. Corporate results make sense only if they support the economy and provide support also to Society as a whole. Our aim is to keep helping families, the economy and society. To do so, we firmly believe that we have all the necessary elements, an efficient commercial model, a strong financial position and a highly committed and qualified team. I would like to add that our corporate structure is also unique.
We have a potential positive return for our shareholders. So we, like I said, believe they are a very good partner. I I would like to finish my intervention by thanking and by expressing my gratitude to all the human team at the group. Without regardless of their provenance, I can say that their intense work, their dedication, their firm commitment and their professionalism made possible all which have explained. I would like to thank you all, dear shareholders, for your support, your implication and your inspiration.
You are the pillar of this great project, and we need you all to keep on making projects. Altogether, we will keep on working on the same line, on the same direction for achieve our achieve or to get more achievements so that Caixa Bank becomes a profitable and committed bank. Thank you.