Bankinter Brand Guidelines: A 1965 Santander–Bank of America Venture & Early Online Banking

Two banks, one Spanish and one American, and an industrial bank.

Bankinter began in June 1965 as Banco Intercontinental Español, an industrial bank set up as a joint venture owned half each by Banco Santander and Bank of America, Spanish Wikipedia says; English Wikipedia names the American partner as BankAmerica. The bank was founded in Madrid, where it is still headquartered.

In 1972 the bank listed on the Madrid stock exchange and became independent of its two founders, and at that point it turned itself into a commercial bank, both the English and Spanish Wikipedia articles say. It has been listed in Madrid ever since and is part of the IBEX 35 index. Spanish Wikipedia gives its stylised name as the lowercase “bankinter.”, written with a full stop.

In 1993, Spanish Wikipedia says, the bank began a growth strategy with outside partners through two networks, Banca Partner and Red Agencial. English Wikipedia adds that in the same year, after introducing electronic banking, Bankinter became “the first digital bank.” In 2006, Spanish Wikipedia says, it transformed its brand image and corporate identity.

Bankinter has been designated a Significant Institution since European banking supervision began in late 2014, English Wikipedia says, and is therefore supervised directly by the European Central Bank. Spanish Wikipedia gives its network as 446 offices and more than 6,500 employees at 31 March 2024.

Bankinternet, Línea Directa and a Portuguese network.

In 1996 Bankinter created its internet portal, Bankinternet, which by June 1997 let customers check their positions with the bank and carry out financial transactions, according to Spanish Wikipedia.

Insurance became a second line. In June 2009, Spanish Wikipedia says, Bankinter carried out a capital increase to buy the half of the direct insurer Línea Directa that it did not already own from the Royal Bank of Scotland. In April 2021 Línea Directa was spun off and listed on the stock exchange, which reduced Bankinter’s holding from 100 percent to 17.4 percent, both Wikipedia editions say.

Portugal followed. On 2 September 2015 Bankinter announced the purchase of the Portuguese retail network of the British bank Barclays, made up of 84 branches; at the same time Bankinter Seguros de Vida, a company controlled half each by Bankinter and the insurer Mapfre, agreed to buy Barclays’ Portuguese life and pensions business. Spanish Wikipedia says both deals closed on 1 April 2016. In August 2023, Spanish Wikipedia says, the European Commission approved the purchase of the Portuguese payments provider Universo IME by the Portuguese group Sonae together with Bankinter Consumer Finance.

Spanish and Portuguese banking.

Spanish and Portuguese banks tend to present themselves through a strong wordmark and a small set of colours, most often a blue, a red or a green. Many of today’s names are recent: BBVA settled on a single initialism for every market in 2019, and CaixaBank took its name in 2011, yet both carry much older histories, in the case of BBVA back to Banco de Bilbao in 1857.

Savings-bank and regional heritage runs deep in the sector. Several of the banks in this guide grew out of the cajas and caixas, the savings banks that served a city or a region, and mergers have often kept old local names on the branches of their home territory. Foundations formed from those savings banks remain shareholders in some of the banks and fund cultural, scientific and social work, such as the la Caixa Foundation and its CaixaForum centres.

On their own websites the banks give most space to everyday banking: current accounts, cards, mortgages, savings and the mobile apps that now carry much of the business, often with digital-only brands beside the main one. Branch fronts and head-office buildings in the banks’ home cities appear often in their photography, and sponsorship of football, basketball and other sports keeps their names in public view.

For the design-minded, the useful material sits in the banks’ corporate sections: brand pages, press releases about new logos, and the annual reports that every listed bank publishes. This guide reads those alongside independent dated sources; the palettes are our own unofficial interpretations, and no logo or mark is reproduced.

EVO Banco, Avant Money and an Irish licence.

On 25 September 2018, Spanish Wikipedia says, Bankinter agreed with Smart Holdco, an entity owned by funds linked to Apollo Global Management, to buy the banking business of EVO Banco in Spain and EVO’s Irish consumer-credit subsidiary, Avantcard; the purchase closed on 31 May 2019. EVO itself had begun on 12 March 2012 as a trading name used by the Galician lender NCG Banco outside Galicia, Asturias and León, and was bought by Apollo Global Management on 28 February 2014, Spanish Wikipedia’s EVO Banco article says; it adds that the operational migration into Bankinter was completed in July 2025. On 1 April 2025 Bankinter absorbed EVO Banco and Avant Money into the parent company. El Español, in a Europa Press report of 26 May 2025, said the merger had been signed at the start of April, that the technological integration would follow around the summer, and that most EVO staff had already moved into the group’s offices at Castellana, Alcobendas and Tres Cantos. The same report described the Cuenta Inteligente Digital Bankinter as a hybrid of Bankinter’s digital account and EVO’s former Cuenta Inteligente, and noted that EVO shares its origins with the Galician bank Abanca; until the technological migration, it said, EVO customers were still using EVO’s own online banking.

In Ireland, RTÉ reported on 22 October 2026 that Bankinter arrived in 2018 through the acquisition of the credit-card firm Avantcard, launched a mortgage offering in 2020 while renaming the business Avant Money, and secured a full Irish banking licence the previous year, after which it began offering deposit accounts; Bankinter itself described the Irish business, in the results RTÉ reported, as still in its infancy. The Irish Times reported on 16 October 2025 that Avant Money, which it called the Irish unit of Bankinter, had begun a “soft launch” of deposits with a small number of existing customers ahead of a full rollout, starting with a six-month fixed-term deposit in a pilot programme. RTÉ now refers to the business as Bankinter Ireland.

For a design guide, Bankinter shows how a bank can build its identity around channels rather than counters, from partner networks and Bankinternet to the digital brands it later folded in, under a short lowercase name. Compare Santander, one of its two founders in 1965, and Banco Sabadell, another Spanish bank with an early online service. For this guide we use a burnt orange, charcoal and a warm grey with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Bankinter’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.