FT Alphaville " Ay, Bankia, nos reimos para no llorar Some light relief from Wednesday's ECB mystery. From Bankia's web site: Si tienes la Cuenta Joven y quieres descubrir qué superpoderes tienes, tan solo tienes que entrar en Bankia. SUPERPODER PLAYERO (Cómo conseguir la toalla) Si no quieres quedarte pegado a la arena de la playa, tendrás que incrementar 300€ el saldo de tu Cuenta Joven para poder llevarte la exclusiva toalla de Spider-Man. Es decir, cuando acabe el mes tienes que tener 300€ más que el mes anterior. It says: If you have a Cuenta Joven [Youth Account] and want to discover which superpowers you have, you just need to join Bankia. If you don't want to end up stuck to the beach sand, you have to increase by €300 the balance of your Youth Account to take with you the exclusive Spider-Man towel. In other words, when the month ends you need to have €300 more [in your account] than [at the end of] the prior month. And here's Reuters explaining what's going on (HT Matt O'Brien): Nationalised Spanish lender Bankia is offering a Spiderman towel to young investors as part of a drive to hold onto deposits after being taken over by the state in the biggest bank rescue in Spain's history. The bank, which holds around 10 percent of Spanish deposits, is offering the prize to youngsters if they manage to save 300 euros ($380) by the end of the month. For every 50 euros saved, account holders can enter a draw for a trip to New York. The drive to push up deposits comes as competitors such as online bank ING Direct embark on aggressive advertising campaigns to poach accounts after a report of a deposit run in early May after the state takeover was announced. Bankia: selling beach towels for €300? There's also some joke in here about radioactivity and absorbing liquidity, but we might be too jaded to get the phrasing right. Anyways, these kinds of deposit drives happen all the time, and the May 15 start date for this one was no doubt a coincidence. But still... Related links: The capital monster - FT Alphaville The capital monster strikes - FT Alphaville This entry was posted by FT Alphaville on Wednesday, May 30th, 2012 at 19:25 and is filed under Capital markets.