Promoting the smooth operation and stability of the financial system

The objective of these functions, which must always be conducted in co-ordination with the Eurosystem, is to guarantee secure and efficient financial and payment systems.

Financial stability, defined as when monetary and financial systems operate smoothly and efficiently, assumes that credit institutions distribute the funds received from savers to those customers requesting funds and that bank services are provided to clients normally.

To achieve this objective, the Banco de España supervises credit institutions in a special way. Firstly, a specific regulation has been created to preserve the correct functioning of financial institutions, to strengthen their capacity to deal with adverse events and to harmonise the interests of all parties involved (banks, savers and investors) with general interests, and secondly, they are closely supervised to ensure compliance with banking rules, and in particular, regulations governing accounting procedures, their solvency, customer protection and market transparency.

Finally, the oversight, security and efficiency of the payment systems is achieved in various ways, ranging from straightforward supervision (designing a system to prevent and anticipate any possible risks and dealing with daily operations) to the comprehensive management of the system.