In mid 1989, 23 Cooperative Banks that had, until that moment, belonged to Grupo Asociado Banco de Crédito Agrícola - Cajas Rurales Asociadas (BCA), left the BCA and established the Asociación Española de Cajas Rurales (Spanish Association of Cooperative Banks). Since that time, more cooperative banks have joined the Association, making it one of the largest operational banking groups in the Spanish financial system.

The institutional framework the group represents, along with the business structure that has grown up around it, confirm the consolidation of a more recent and more intense concentration process within the Spanish cooperative banking sector.