Annual summary of commissions and interests: this is how banks must comply in January with the obligatory appointment with their clients

During January, banks have on their agenda the mandatory appointment to send all their clients a complete and detailed annual summary of commissions and interests. This is indicated in Circular 5/2012 published in June 2012 by the Bank of Spain.

Financial entities are obliged by the Bank of Spain to send separately the information on the accounts and banking services that citizens have or have contracted during the previous year. The purpose of this information is to offer transparency of banking services and responsibility in granting loans.

In addition, this information makes it possible to negotiate with the bank the reduction or elimination of commissions and expenses, but “for this it is important to receive it clearly and know how to interpret it, although many times it is so concise and poorly explained that it means that nothing is done to improve ”financial expenses, says Antonio Gallardo, head of studies at the Association of Financial Users (Asufin).

In relation to the bank accountsthe entity must provide the client with a summarized statement of the commissions charged, and send a report for each account that is open.

This document must include all the commissions applied during the previous calendar year for the associated services and must break down the unit amounts and the totals. In addition, the bank has to report the credit and overdraft interest rates applied to the bank account balance and the total amount of interest collected and paid during 2022.

banking services

In addition to the summary of commissions, the financial institution is obliged to provide its clients with information on the banking services provided to users.

This document should contain information about the loans or credits who have their customers. In this case, the report sent must contain a detailed summary of all the interest collected and paid and the commissions and expenses accrued for each service provided by the bank during 2022.

Interest must be reported, including late payment, commissions and expenses applied to loans or credits, credit cards, contracting or selling pension funds, shares in collective investment institutions, commissions paid for the use of ATMs, issuance conformed checks, etc.

Communication way

The annual summary –both with account commissions and interest paid for banking services– can be sent by the bank through ordinary mail or electronically, if that is the option that the client has chosen to communicate with the bank. For this reason, it is advisable to check your email inbox on the website or on the app of the financial institution.

The main problem with these summaries, as Gallardo indicates, “is that they often go unnoticed by customers because postal mail is less and less and digital shipments are growing”, and on many occasions customers can confuse this summary “with information to integrate in the income statement.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that The communication of this summary of commissions and interests is personal and must be received individuallyeven if there are several co-owners of any banking product.

The data is reported without splitting the amounts applied or charged to each account or transaction. When there are several holders of an account or of a financial product, the summary will indicate the total number of co-holders and each one must receive the communication separately.

The purpose of this information is to comply with Law 2/2011 on Sustainable Economy to develop the concept of responsibility in the granting of loans to consumers by credit institutions and, at the same time, to guarantee the adequate level of protection of users of financial services in their relations with banks.

At the same time, the purpose of this data is to serve as an indication of the banks’ pricing policy, allowing the monitoring of its evolution by each entity and, once published on the Internet pages of the Bank of Spain, facilitating comparisons between entities. .

Information exclusion

The annual summary to be sent in January does not include interest, commissions or expenses related to operations on the stock market or securities services.

Nor does it include any interest, commission or expense related to the management of investment funds, except for those corresponding to the subscription or redemption operations of their shares in these financial products, which are included in the annual summary.

This information, excluded from the annual summary for January, is usually sent by financial institutions at the end of March on the occasion of the start of the Personal Income Tax campaign for its inclusion in the corresponding section of the annual income statement.