Personal loan and consumer lending
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Law 2/2011 on the sustainable economy (in Spanish), and the subsequent Law 16/2011 on credit agreements for consumers (in Spanish) contain several provisions for both the protection of customers and financial institutions in relation to requesting and granting financing, respectively.
Financial institutions must act impartially and take customers’ personal and financial situation into account. They must have methods and procedures for advising on, assessing and granting financing and a product marketing policy adapted to the needs of each specific case.
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Lending is not an activity that is restricted to financial institutions but can be performed freely. However, most companies providing this service are subject to the regulations for financial institutions and supervised by the Banco de España.
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Yes. You have 14 days from signing in which you can notify your lender that you wish to cancel the agreement without having to give any further explanation and without being charged a cancellation fee.
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When purchasing expensive items such as furniture or electrical appliances, or paying for services such as dental treatment, you may often be offered the option of financing them with credit, usually from a bank.
When the credit is used exclusively to finance the purchase or the service, the credit and the purchase form a single contract, so if you decide to stop the dental treatment, for instance, you will cease to be liable for the credit.
Moreover, if you are not satisfied with the service received, you can exercise your rights against both the company providing the service and the bank that provided the credit.
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No. In fact, many companies giving credit with little paperwork, over short periods but at high cost –in the form of either high interest rates or fees– are not supervised by the Banco de España.
If you wish to find out whether a lender offering you a loan or from which you are considering borrowing is supervised by the Banco de España, you can check Banco de España’s Credit Institutions Register.