Bankia Bank

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Bankia Bank was established in Oslo, Norway in 2001. It specializes in offering deposit accounts and credit cards to consumers, and had by 2004 become a leading issuer of VISA credit cards. It's the only Norwegian bank not having fees on any of their products.

Bankia offers a self-serve service similar to ING Direct of the Netherlands, where clients do not have access to regular banking services, but are offered a few niche consumer products at very competitive prices. Most notably savings accounts that are used to fund a single specific product like credit cards (Bankia) or mortgages (ING).

Bankia was established by four individuals; Tor Erland Fyksen, Jan Grenth, Eirik Holtedahl, and Raimond Pettersen, having raised approx. USD 20 million from Norwegian investors. The bank achieved about 110,000 clients before it was sold to Banco Santander in Spring 2005 for NOK 435 mill. (USD 67 mill.). It had become Norway's most profitable bank in terms on return on equity.

In December 2005, Fyksen, Grenth, and Holtedahl established a second bank in Luxembourg offering the same products. The new bank, Advanzia Bank, had by year-end 2006 become the largest Luxembourg credit card issuer, being the only bank offering no-fee credit cards in Luxembourg and Germany.

The first bank in Norway to offer no-fee basic consumer banking products, was Skandiabanken AB which introduced its Internet banking solution in April 2000. The bank had by 2004 become the largest Norwegian retail bank in terms of Internet users, surpassing the major retail bank Postbanken.