New reporting obligations to the Bank of Spain on conduct matters

Ricardo Plasencia, Andrea Salgueiro & Luis Espejo 

On 1 December 2021, the Bank of Spain published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) Circular 4/2021, dated 25 November 2021, directed at credit institutions and other supervised entities with templates for providing confidential financial statements on market conduct, transparency and customer protection, and including a complaints register (hereinafter the "Circular"). The Circular includes new reporting obligations to the Bank of Spain for supervised entities.

The Circular establishes the obligation for entities to submit confidential financial statements on market conduct, transparency and customer protection to the Bank of Spain, as well as the requirement for institutions with individuals as customers to have a complaints register available to the Bank of Spain with a predefined content.

The Bank of Spain therefore follows a supervisory approach similar to that of the CNMV with its Circular 1/2010 on confidential information of entities which provide investment services.

The Circular applies to: (i) credit institutions; (ii) financial credit entities; (iii) payment institutions; (iv) electronic money institutions; (v) entities providing account information services; (vi) foreign currency purchase and sale entities; (vii) real estate lenders and real estate credit intermediaries; and (viii) branches in Spain of credit institutions, payment institutions and electronic money institutions authorised in the EU or in a third country.

It establishes the obligation to submit the confidential financial statements to the Bank of Spain on a biannual basis. Statements for the first half of the year must be submitted no later than 5 September and those for the second half of the year no later than 5 March of that year. The first confidential financial statements on conduct matters to be submitted to the Bank of Spain will be those corresponding to the second half of 2022 (to be submitted by 5 March 2023) and institutions will have until 31 December 2022 to complete the complaints register which, must at the least, contain all complaints received after 30 June 2022.

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