MADRID: Spanish lenders Bankia and Caixabank said on Friday that their boards had agreed to call shareholder meetings to approve their agreed merger for Dec. 1 and Dec. 3 respectively.

Last month, Caixabank agreed to buy Bankia for 4.3 billion euros ($5.1 billion) in an all-share deal that creates Spain's biggest domestic lender and signals a pick up in mergers among Europe's banks as they battle the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.