Those banks were called "Cajas de ahorros". Most people had their money there instead of private Banks.
The concept worked very well for something like 200 years. Until politicians changed the law to control the Cajas themselves.
After politicians took control,they did things like private lending at 0 interest to their friends and party(they even lent to one of the biggest party 50 Million euro and then totally forgave the debt!!) or putting their almost illiterate friends as counselors.
It took only 15 years after that to totally bankrupt all cajas in Spain, and now they are owned by private banks.