The regulation of conduct and banking transparency are essential to ensure proper protection of bank customers and to preserve trust in the financial system. The Banco de España plays an active role in this area through:
- Technical support and collaboration. The Banco de España provides technical support and collaborates with national and European legislators in the development of regulations on conduct, transparency and customer protection.
- Preparation of circulars. For the development and implementation of higher-ranking conduct regulations, the Banco de España prepares circulars when it has been empowered or mandated to do so. These circulars address issues such as advertising or information provided to customers, among others.
- Preparation and adoption of guidelines. The Banco de España prepares and publishes supervisory guidelines for supervised institutions in which it sets out the criteria it deems appropriate to ensure compliance with conduct regulations. It also adopts the guidelines issued by the European Banking Authority.
- Handling of interpretative enquiries. The Banco de España handles and resolves enquiries concerning the interpretation of these regulations, with a view to ensuring their proper application and clarifying doubts.
In addition, the Banco de España has developed an application called EncuenTRA, where best practice criteria and conduct, transparency and customer protection regulations can be found. This tool gives the general public and financial institutions access to key information.