The Body announces the reactivation of the agency that will resolve customer claims against banks

The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, announced on Friday that the Government will reactivate after the summer the processing of the new Financial Customer Defence Authority, a body that will resolve customer complaints against banks without the need to go to court. The initiative has been awaiting its launch for more than four years, delayed first by the calling of early elections in July 2023 and by the parliamentary deadlock that has ensued since then.

This body was conceived as a one-stop shop for financial customers to file complaints against banks, insurance companies and investment firms, centralising functions currently held by the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) and the Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds (DGSFP). It will resolve complaints in fewer than 90 days and its decision will be binding, without the need to approach other authorities, for claims of less than 20,000 euros. For matters involving higher amounts, it will be able to produce expert reports.

Among the issues to be resolved are possible breaches of codes of conduct, good practices and financial customs, as well as the abusive nature of clauses in financial contracts. In 2025, the Bank of Spain received 30,970 complaints, according to data published this week in its Complaints Report. Although the figure fell by 30% compared to the previous year, a particularly notable increase of 18% in complaints relating to banking fraud stands out.

The creation of this new supervisory body dates back to the time of Nadia Calviño as Minister of Economy. She announced its launch in April 2022, when the Council of Ministers approved it for the first time. It came close to seeing the light of day then, but the aforementioned dissolution of the Cortes following the calling of a general election sent it back to square one. Once a new Government was formed, the Economy Ministry relaunched the project at the end of 2023 and anticipated that it would be up and running by 2024. Reality has proved more complicated.

Once the Council of Ministers gave the green light to the project for a second time, it went to the Congress of Deputies. It did pass the stage of wholesale amendments, which, had they succeeded, would have meant returning the project to the Government. But since then it has languished for two years at the stage of partial amendments.

The ministry is seeking to put an end to this delay and has announced that it will advance the parliamentary process by bringing the matter before the Economy Committee in September, a prior step to its definitive approval by the full Congress, as Cuerpo announced at the end of the periodic meeting with banking and consumer associations on financial inclusion, held this Friday. The law creating the Financial Customer Defence Authority will face, in the final stages of the legislature, the Government's parliamentary weakness, which has prevented the passage of several laws and decrees. In the previous legislature, the initiative received the abstention of the PP, which would facilitate its processing.

The project has been controversial from the outset. It has faced fierce opposition from the two banking industry associations, the Spanish Banking Association (AEB) and that of the former savings banks (Ceca). They view this new body as an additional layer of complexity in their daily operations, as well as a potential new source of litigation following the disputes arising from the marketing of products such as floor-clause mortgages and preferred shares. They also criticize its funding model, which involves a fee of 250 euros per claim to be paid by the banks.

"We already said that we did not consider it necessary to create a new body. We felt it was a better option, in line with what has been done in other countries, to improve or adjust certain aspects of what already exists at the Bank of Spain, the CNMV and the Directorate General of Insurance. The only similar experience we have is in the United Kingdom, which was designed for 300 workers with the aim of reducing litigation, and once up and running, both the structure and the number of claims multiplied," noted Alejandra Kindelán, president of the AEB, in one of her most recent statements on the matter.

But the creation of this body has not only faced rejection from the banking sector, but also from other supervisors, such as the Bank of Spain and the CNMV. On the one hand, they see it as potentially reducing their own functions and look more favorably upon the creation of a supervisory system known in the jargon as twin peaks. That is, one body tasked with overseeing the conduct of financial institutions and consumer protection, and another focused on solvency.

The former Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, criticized the launch of this body. In his view, the aforementioned funding model would trigger an increase in litigation between banks and customers, and he proposed that the fee be paid by whichever party received an unfavorable ruling. However, since the previous processing of the legislation, the leadership of both this body and the CNMV has changed. Neither the current Governor, José Luis Escrivá, who was in government when the Council of Ministers approved it, nor Carlos San Basilio have commented on the matter.