A warning from the Banco de España! Don’t be alarmed – get the facts straight from us
22/08/2023
It’s possible that for some months now, you’ll have been reading articles on several websites with headlines carrying alarming warnings from the Banco de España. News articles claiming that we are are cautioning the public of the dangers of paying by credit card, advising people of how much money should be kept at home or even, more recently, revealing that €1 coins will lose their value! (Spoiler: they won’t.) Such headlines always use sensationalist wording like “The Banco de España has issued a warning regarding ...” or may call directly on the reader to do (or not do) something: “The Banco de España is warning people not to ...”. We’ve done something similar in the title to our own post today.
The intention behind these headlines is to get you to click on them. It’s clickbait, employing attention-grabbing headlines warning of dire consequences if we do or don’t do something that is really quite ordinary. Some news websites use this strategy to boost their visitor count, one of the metrics they can use to set their advertising rates.
While not inherently a bad practice (a news headline should catch your attention, after all) the current issue is that many of these articles are created by automated systems– AI, in fact – and crafted specifically to make the reader bite, not to provide information. If you’ve ever taken the bait, you’ll have seen that, almost every time, the supposed warning is not what it seems. They take basic tips from the Banco de España’s own Bank Customer Portal and just exaggerate or misrepresent them.
So, here’s a basic tip, straight from the horse’s mouth: follow the Banco de España on our social media channels (@BancoDeEspana on TwitterAbre en ventana nueva and LinkedInAbre en ventana nueva), subscribe to updates from the Bank Customer PortalAbre en ventana nueva and visit the Banco de España websiteAbre en ventana nueva often. This way, you’ll be kept up to date about any warnings and advice we really do issue … without any unnecessary stress.
