We heard repeatedly from individuals, including our Spanish colleagues, that people generally have a very little trust in their financial institutions. In fact, evidently people trust their supermarket more than they do their bank.

Some of the savings banks in Spain are addressing this lack of trust by creating customer 'charters' outlining the bank's customer service commitments. One bank in particular, whose motto is "If you're not happy, we're not happy", has issued a 'commitment' with 17 different points, each of which entails a financial penalty if the bank fails to meet the commitment. For example, Commitment #9 states the bank will respond to formally submitted customer complaints within two business days. For each day of delay, the bank would reimburse the customer 5 euros, up to a maximum of 50 euros.

The bank actually issues an annual report on compliance with its customer commitments and its action plan to improve customer service against each of the 17 commitments. Last year, the bank paid out 1.2 million euros to more than 5,600 customers for failing to meet specific commitments.

One of the savings banks we visited is taking an even more radical approach to increasing customer trust. In the near future, they intend to share with their customers the profitability of each client's relationship to the bank in an effort to increase transparency and strengthen customer trust. It will be interesting to see how their customers react to getting this information, particularly those that generate the most profits to the institution.

This particular institution also was distinctive in the market with respect to their new branch design. They are looking to reposition their branches as 'canchas', which, loosely translated, means 'playground', or a place where customers can hang out, surf the Internet, read the local paper and have a cup of coffee. Under their new model, the customer "has the right to use our spaces", where the branch becomes a more social part of the local community. The lobby of the branch is an open space that can be used by customers for presentations or meetings. For example, one of their business customers, a photography store did a seminar on digital cameras, while a nearby salon did a session for women on better use of cosmetics. More than 400 different activities have already been staged in the bank's branches across Spain. Each branch has a budget for these activities and is given freedom to experiment with different types of sessions (a wine tasting session in a branch apparently didn't go over so well). Their customers are still getting accustomed to this new type of branch. The design is so singular compared to other branches in Madrid that during the several hours we were there, we heard several customers ask "Is this a bank?" after entering the building.

This branch also had some other cool features not widely seen elsewhere. The PCs in the branch were equipped with Webcams that enable customers to have a discussion with a mortgage or investment specialist located at a different office. The bank is even considering using the technology to communicate with customers at their home or office and eliminate the need to come into the branch. In addition, the branch sales reps don't have their own desks, but instead use one of the conference rooms in the branch when they need to meet with a customer. The branch manager doesn't even have an office, although she has a small workspace in an area not accessible to customers.

This bank was also notable in that it donates more than 40% of its pretax profits to charitable causes in the communities it serves. Equally noteworthy was the fact that the bank allows its retail and small business customers to decide how the profits they generate get distributed to specific charitable organizations ("You choose, you decide" is the bank's motto). Using a touchscreen flat panel display in the branch linked to the Internet, customers can get information on more than 1,600 different charitable projects (related to education, health, culture and other causes). They can also see how many customers contributed to each project and the value of their contributions. One of the projects we read about has more than 26,000 bank customers contributing to it.