Making banks accountable

Maria,

I came across a Bank of Spain complaints procedure and it appeared that they provide annual statistical reports. Is this correct? Unfortunately the statistics were in Spanish, so would it be worthwhile getting these translated for EOS users to see which Banks have been offenders? Might this transparency be a useful longer-term ploy to make the Banks more accountable as people could decide against using any bank that appears to be abusive on consumer rights issues?

The website address was  http://www.bde.es/webbde/es/secciones/informes/Publicaciones_an/Memoria_del_Serv/anoactual/

Just a thought.

 Excellent idea Anne. I will search on the Bank of Spain publications as soon as possible and will extract the most relevant/ recent information

Anne & María

I downloaded the Annual Reports from the Banco de España website last year.  They are PDF files and have a fair number of pages.  Only a very small section from each report is relevant to the Bank Guarantees issue.  I used this information in the complaint letter that I sent to the Banco de España on 12 Oct 2010.

The reports do contain details on the number of complaints received during each year - but they include complaints for every area of banking and not just the Bank Guarantees issue.

From my dealings with Banco de España since my complaint was filed on 12 Oct 2010 I can tell you that they really are not interested in dealing with the issues.

Once they realised the seriousness of the complaint they put the barriers up and made it very clear that they have no authority to force the Banks to comply with the Law.  They can only make recommendations to the Banks - but the Banks do not have to comply.

The simple advice from the Banco de España is:  TAKE LEGAL ACTION AND LET THE COURTS DEAL WITH THE ISSUE.

This is yet another example of passing the buck - and the Banco de España proudly state on their website that they are the SUPERVISOR OF THE SPANISH BANKING SYSTEM................

They may be the Supervisor but they have very little power and they are happy to supervise Banks that have been and still are acting contrary to the requirements of LEY 57/68.

It is a scandal.

Kind regards

Keith

The above chart includes number of claims of every sort prsented to Bank of Spain from 1999 to 2009.

The chart below shows main entities to which claims have been forwarded by Bank of Spain:

María

Good to see the graphs extracted like that.

So there were around 8,000 complaints to the Banco de España in 2008 and almost 14,000 complaints in 2009.

That is a massive increase.  I would think that a large proportion of that increase was due to complaints regarding Bank Guarantees and the failure of Banks to comply with their obligations under LEY 57/68.  The Banco de España admitted to me when I spoke with them back in November that they had seen a very large increase in complaints regarding Bank Guarantees.

And.......from the second graph - 120 complaints against Bankinter in 2008 and 569 in 2009.  A massive increase of 374%.

But the disappointing thing is that we know that the Banco de España has very limited supervisory powers. 

So in 2010 there may have been another 374% increase in complaints against Bankinter - but nothing will be done - they will continue to trade - receive a few penalties and continue to act in a way that forces their valued customers to complain to the weak SUPERVISOR OF THE SPANISH BANKING SYSTEM - Banco de España.

Kind regards

Keith

Keith,

"They (the Bank of Spain) can only make recommendations to the Banks - but the Banks do not have to comply."

Well doesn't that tell all !

I think we should seize this opportunity to make the facts known to as many as possible, and trust that those who are not caught up in this scenario but are sick and tired of Banks having little conscience and accountability will now also demonstrate support for your petition. www.bankguaranteesinspain.com

And in the interim we should possibly vote with our feet and take note of those Banks who are perpetrating these abuses, and encourage all to take their custom elsewhere, until such time as they demonstrate a willingness to address their responsibilities according to the Law 57/68?

Maria,

Thank you so much for your analysis.

Do you not consider that we now need a consistent standardised approach from lawyers on this, to report ALL instances of BG abuse to the BOE and to use the statistical evidence to play its part in a public awareness campaign, which in itself may lead to a form of self correction (a sort of watchdog approach)? Is this worth bringing up with your other legal professionals Maria? Is it worth bringing legal professionals together to form this structured approach that can no longer be ignored, so as to provide a simple means of standardised complaint and statistical evidence gathering procedure, which in turn will hopefully assist the campaign? Or are there aspects to this that sound unworkable, as it would have to be realistic to work!

Many thanks again to you both.

 Ads: I wish I could do more but what it is getting my attention and work now is to help everyone of the clients in the Law Firm. We are finalising our efforts to clients´ information.

Anyhow, We opened the facebook group and have requested our IT person to create a web for lawyers to meet and bring solutions for better justice administration.

On the Banks and Bank of Spain matter, we fully rely on what Keith has started and so proffessionally has promoted.