Enquiries in the 2021 Complaints Report
03/11/2022
The 2021 Complaints Report is a Banco de España publication which contains information on the complaints and enquiries submitted by the public during the year. In 2021 the total number of enquiries handled by the Banco de España increased by 4.4% with respect to the previous year –when, it should be recalled, they increased by 53.9%– to a total of 48,955 enquiries (6,748 written and 42,207 telephone enquiries).
2021 was the year with the second highest volume of enquiries in the last decade (after 2014), continuing the growth pattern started in 2019.
With respect to the content of the written enquiries received in 2021, it can be seen that users continue to be concerned about the same issues as in previous years. As shown in the following graph, the greatest relative weight corresponds to enquiries relating to current accounts and deposits (23.5%), mortgage loans (18.4%) and Banco de España operations (13%). The latter category includes enquiries relating to Banco de España statistics and those relating to data declared by institutions to the Central Credit Register. Also noteworthy are the enquiries related to payment services (11.9%) and to the complaints procedure (9.5%), which reflect the heterogeneous nature of the enquiries made by users.
Going into detail, the modification of current account contractual conditions continues to be one of the most frequent subject matters of enquiries (a total of 699 written enquiries were received in 2021 on "account holders, access regime and modifications") and, for this reason, it forms part of the selection of the most significant enquiries in the 2021 Complaints Report.
Other topics consulted are: financial exclusion; charges for issuing outstanding debt certificate; delays in the handling of probate services, withdrawal of funds by heirs and maintenance fees on the account of a deceased account holder; fraudulent card transactions not authorised by the account holder; and cash withdrawals and limits on deposits.
For more detailed information on the 2021 Complaints Report, please see the following link: https://www.bde.es/bde/es/secciones/informes/informes-y-memorias-anuales/memoria-de-reclamacionesAbre en ventana nueva/; or directly access the selection of the most significant 2021 enquiries in Chapter 3, which is available below: https://www.bde.es/f/webbde/Secciones/Publicaciones/PublicacionesAnuales/MemoriaServicioReclamaciones/21/MSR2021_Cap_3_Consultas_mas_significativas.pdfAbre en ventana nueva.
