With the financial services sector still in turmoil, and capitalism itself on trial, audiences may be more receptive than usual to new thinking about the U.S. financial system.

Enrique Goni, CEO of a Spanish bank called Caja Navarra, offered his perspective on banking and finance in remarks at the National Press Club today.

His bank’s operating model gives customers – Goni calls them “citizens” – a bigger say in how their money is managed and who benefits from their profits. Each year the bank shows each customer how much money the bank made on his or her assets and allows the customer to direct 30% of that figure to a non-profit of the customer’s choice.

Goni calls the model “civic banking,” and says he believes all banks are headed in this direction. That may be too ambitious, but the overall message – that banks need to be more transparent and become stronger partners with their customers – could help bridge the chasm of distrust that has developed between many Americans and big banks.

Caja Navarra is making its first forays outside Spain and is for now operating in the U.S. as a consulting company. But Goni agrees that if his concept is to take hold in a bigger way, now is the time.

When asked why he was in DC to push his new banking model, Goni replied that the U.S. will design the new architecture of global banking: “This is the moment; this is the country.”