Services

Opening direct accounts

What are they?

The Banco de España offers direct accounts as a service to natural and legal persons resident in Spain, in order to purchase and sell government debt.

They are government debt security accounts recorded as book-entries and under no circumstances do they imply the opening of a cash account in the Banco de España.

How to open a direct account

There are two procedures:

• By acquiring government debt directly from the Banco de España.
• Transferring balances from the accounts where the government debt is held, from your institution (bank, savings bank, etc .) to the Banco de España.

What details do you have to give?

Natural persons have to include their DNI and their NIF ; legal persons, their CIF and their deeds of incorporation and the powers of attorney registered in the Companies Register and, when applicable, publication of the registration in the Official Gazette of the Companies Register ( BORME ).

When formalising the operation, a form must be filled out with the details of the persons whose signature(s) will be accepted by the Bank and the institution and account number where repayments, interest, surpluses, etc. will be paid.

Direct accounts may be held by natural persons as an individual account (one account holder) or as a joint account ( two or more account holders). In order to facilitate management of the account, the account holders can agree with the Banco de España which one(s) of the account holders, or even a third party, will have access to the account.

What do they offer?

Generally speaking:

• The exercise of financial entitlements derived from the book-entry debt (collection of interest payments, redemptions, exchanges) will be paid by bank transfer to the account the holder has designated.
• Reinvestment of the redeemed debt, at the account holder's request, as long as the redemption coincides with the day of new debt issues (the calendar of bill issues is organised so that all issues link up with a redemption). If there is the possibility of reinvestment, the Banco de España notifies the account holders with sufficient notice for them to be able to exercise their entitlement.
• Timely information about procedures by sending receipts of transactions, reinvestment requests, notification of cash payments, letters with tax information, etc. all sent by post.
• The possibility of transferring the book-entry debt to another managing entity or to the Stock Exchange before maturity, for its sale on the secondary market.

What do they exclude?

Generally speaking:

• It is not possible to perform sale or purchase transactions of government debt on the secondary debt market.
• It is not possible to record changes in ownership resulting from any transaction carried out in the secondary market.

What costs do they incur?

Cash transfers accrue fees in favour of the Banco de España which are agreed by its Executive Commission. They have been set at 1.5 per thousand of the amount to be transferred since 2 January 2005, with a minimum of 0.9 euro and a maximum of 200 euros.

How to purchase government debt again

Direct account holders may purchase government debt again if they have sufficient balance in their account. To do so, they must fill out and sign the form provided in the attached application and send it by post to the Banco de España offices where they hold their account.

How to make a complaint

Account holders who do not agree with the conduct of the Banco de España as a managing entity may lodge a complaint with the Subdirectorate General of Public Debt of the Directorate General of the Treasury and Financial Policy or with the Banco de España's own Claims Service.

Supplementary information

The Treasury also has an internet securities service.