Press room

Central Credit Register

• What is the Banco de España Central Credit Register? (CIR)

  The Central Credit Register (CIR in Spanish) is a public service which manages a database containing practically all the loans, credits, guarantees and risks in general that financial institutions hold with their customers.

  The Banco de España has managed the Central Credit Register since 1962, whose main objective is to provide reporting institutions (mainly credit institutions) with the data they need to conduct an optimum analysis of their credit risk. The CIR also allows the Banco de España to obtain global data on the loans made by the institutions, thereby facilitating the banking supervisory functions of the Bank.

  At the end of 2008, more than 33.9 million direct and indirect credits (the latter for guarantees on direct credits) had been reported to CIR worth a total of 3.75 billion euros and distributed between 17.6 million borrowers, 94% of which were natural persons residing in Spain.

• Who has access to its data?

  Any reported borrower can request data from the CIR. To do so, proof of the borrower's identity must be presented at any Banco de España branch or in writing to: Banco de España Central Credit Register, C/ Alcalá 48, 28014-MADRID. Natural persons must provide a photocopy of both sides of their DNI . Legal persons must provide a photocopy of their CIF , the personal details (name, NIF and position) of the signatory, who must be sufficiently authorised and must provide the following details of the corresponding power of attorney: date, notary and record book number.

  All institutions reporting to the CIR can also access aggregated information on the entire credit they have reported to the borrowing system, or on any other borrower provided that express authorisation to do so has been granted by the latter.

• What is the minimum threshold for reporting a credit to the CIR ?

  Generally speaking, it is compulsory to report all direct credits to resident borrowers of €6,000 or more in all business conducted in Spain, or that is equal to or greater than €60,000 in any other country. For non-residents values of €300,000 or more must be reported.