Bank customers' rights. Enquiries to the Banco de España

18/06/2020

The Banco de España offers citizens a service whereby they can make enquiries about the bank customers’ rights in terms of transparency and good practices.

In 2019, 30,462 queries were dealt with, an increase of 1.5% with respect to 2018. The preferred channel for making enquiries continues to be the telephone (26,743 received), although written enquiries doubled (3,719).

In telephone enquiries, the most frequent topics relate to claim procedures vis-à-vis the Banco de España, as well as payment services, accounts and deposits and mortgage loans.

In written enquiries, the most frequent topics relate to mortgage loan fees and charges, inheritance, cancellation and changes to account conditions, as well as questions relating to payment services.

In the first four months of 2020, the number of enquiries received by the Institutions’ Conduct department increased. In particular, in April (703 written enquiries and 7,939 telephone enquiries, as compared to 275 and 1,924 received in April 2019), when a significant number of questions were dealt with in relation to the economic measures approved by the Spanish government to tackle the Covid-19 crisis.

In this respect, the most frequent topics of enquiry were the ICO guarantee facility for the self-employed and SMEs, the request for information on the requirements and procedure for granting mortgage and non-mortgage moratoria, and rent payment assistance. You can find information on these and other measures in this post.