Banco de España · Spain

Spanish conduct and complaints reporting to Banco de España (DCMR)

Fintech Passport

June 21, 2026 · 6-min read

Spanish conduct and complaints reporting to Banco de España (DCMR)

Spain’s conduct-side supervisory reporting runs on its own track, separately from the prudential and AML cycles. Banco de España (for credit institutions and most non-bank PSPs) and CNMV (for investment firms and CASPs) collect structured data on customer complaints, conduct outcomes, fee transparency and supervisory engagement — and use it to drive consumer-protection oversight. The reporting is sometimes referred to as DCMR (Declaración de Conducta y Mercado de Recursos / Resolución) or under various CNMV circular labels. This piece walks through who reports what, where, and how the cycle interacts with the rest of the supervisory catalogue.

1. What conduct reporting captures

The conduct and complaints reporting framework is not one single return; it is a cluster of structured submissions covering:

Customer complaints — every complaint received, the customer category, the product, the resolution time, the outcome, whether escalated
Conduct outcomes — sample-based outcome measures on suitability, best execution, marketing communications
Fees and charges — periodic disclosure of the fee schedule and material changes
Banco de España Claims Service activity — interactions with the supervisor’s claims function where a customer escalates beyond the firm
CNMV Investor Service activity — equivalent for investment-firm and CASP customers

Together these constitute the supervisor’s conduct lens — the data that informs whether the firm is treating customers fairly, in line with PSD2 / EMD2 / MiFID II / MiCA obligations.

2. Legal basis

Royal Decree-Law 19/2018 (PSD2 transposition) and Royal Decree 736/2019 — conduct rules for PSD2 services
Law 21/2011 (EMD2 transposition) — conduct rules for e-money issuance
MiFID II in the Spanish Securities Markets Law — conduct rules for investment services
MiCA Regulation directly — conduct rules for crypto-asset services
Banco de España Circular and CNMV Circular series — the specific reporting templates, frequencies and channels
Law 7/2017 on alternative dispute resolution — the framework for the Banco de España Claims Service and the CNMV Investor Service

3. Who reports where

Firm type	Primary conduct supervisor	Channel
Credit institution	Banco de España	EDITRAN + BdE conduct portal
Electronic Money Institution	Banco de España	EDITRAN + BdE conduct portal
Payment Institution	Banco de España	EDITRAN + BdE conduct portal
Investment firm (ESI)	CNMV	CNMV CIFRADOC and complementary portals
Crypto-Asset Service Provider	CNMV (with BdE on EMT / ART touchpoints)	CNMV portal

4. The complaints submission

Typical fields per complaint:

Customer category — consumer, professional, eligible counterparty
Product or service category
Channel through which the complaint was received
Date of receipt
Date of resolution
Outcome — upheld, partially upheld, rejected, mediated
Whether the customer escalated to the BdE Claims Service or the CNMV Investor Service
Whether any remediation payment was made

The submission is typically semi-annual or annual depending on the supervisor and the firm size. Bigger firms file more granular data more frequently.

5. The Banco de España Claims Service

BdE operates a dedicated Customer Claims Service (Servicio de Reclamaciones del Banco de España) that handles customer escalations beyond the firm. The procedure:

The customer files a complaint with the firm; the firm must respond within a defined window (typically two months for consumer complaints, shorter for PSD2 disputes)
If the customer is unsatisfied, they escalate to the BdE Claims Service
The Claims Service investigates, requests information from the firm, and issues a non-binding opinion
The opinion feeds BdE’s supervisory data — patterns of adverse opinions are a supervisory signal

The firm must respond to Claims Service requests within tight deadlines. Persistent non-response patterns are a supervisory finding in their own right.

6. The CNMV Investor Service

CNMV operates an equivalent service for investment-firm and CASP customers. The procedural shape is similar — firm-first resolution, then CNMV escalation, then a non-binding opinion. CNMV’s Investor Service publishes annual reports that summarise complaint trends across the market; specific firms with high adverse-outcome rates are visible.

7. Conduct outcomes — beyond complaints

Beyond complaint volumes, supervisors collect outcome data on:

Suitability and appropriateness (MiFID II / MiCA) — sample assessments of customer-questionnaire outcomes
Best execution — venue analysis, execution-quality metrics
Marketing communications — sample review for compliance with the marketing-consistency rules under MiCA and MiFID II
Fee transparency — alignment between advertised fees and actual charges
Vulnerable-customer outcomes — increasingly featured in supervisory expectations

8. Cadence and channel

Complaints submission: semi-annual or annual depending on the supervisor and the firm size
Claims Service responses: ad-hoc, on supervisor demand, typically within 15 working days
Fee-schedule updates: notification within defined windows of material changes
Conduct-outcome submissions: typically annual
Channel: EDITRAN + BdE / CNMV portals for the structured parts; secure email or portal upload for narrative responses

9. Reconciliation

The complaints submission must reconcile against the firm’s internal case-management system. Supervisors sample the underlying cases during inspections — a complaint logged internally but missing from the supervisory submission is a finding. The reverse — a submission containing complaints not in the internal log — is also a finding.

10. FAQ

What counts as a complaint?

Any expression of dissatisfaction from a customer or potential customer, in writing or recorded electronically, that requires a response. Casual social-media comments without an identifiable customer are usually out of scope; structured complaints through any channel are in.

I’m passporting in — do I report to BdE or to my home supervisor?

For Spanish-customer complaints, you typically report to BdE (or CNMV) under the conduct framework, alongside any home-state reporting. Specifics depend on the activity; check the supervisor’s local guidance.

Are AISPs in scope of the complaints reporting?

Yes — AIS providers are obligated under PSD2 conduct rules and must operate a complaint-handling procedure. The structured reporting flows to BdE.

How is the BdE Claims Service different from court litigation?

The Claims Service issues a non-binding opinion — neither the customer nor the firm is forced to follow it. Courts (or arbitration where contractually agreed) provide binding resolution. In practice, opinions adverse to the firm carry supervisory weight beyond the individual case.

What if a complaint is escalated to a third-party ADR body?

Spain has alternative dispute resolution bodies for specific sectors. Where the firm participates in an ADR scheme, those outcomes are typically captured in the conduct reporting alongside Claims-Service outcomes.

How does this interact with MiFIR transaction reporting?

MiFIR transaction reporting feeds market-surveillance, not conduct. The conduct framework is separate — different channel, different cadence, different schema. The two reconcile only at the firm-identifier level.

11. What to do, today

Build the complaints case-management system around the structured fields the supervisor wants — category, channel, resolution time, outcome — not free text.
Reconcile the supervisory submission against the internal case log every cycle.
Track BdE Claims Service / CNMV Investor Service request patterns separately — escalation volume is itself a supervisory signal.
Coordinate conduct reporting with AML and prudential cycles so a single audit trail covers all three for any inspection.
Watch the PSD3 / PSR package — the conduct provisions are being refreshed and the reporting framework will be updated accordingly.