Banks must provide personalized service to vulnerable customers.

The Official State Gazette published on 27 December 2025 Law 10/2025, of 26 December, regulating customer care services, which reforms Law 44/2002, of 22 November, on Measures for the Reform of the Financial System. Financial institutions are now required to provide personalised care that takes into account the customer’s age, disability, digital skills and area of residence, and decisions by the Customer Ombudsman favourable to the claimant will be binding on the institution. The legislation, sanctioned by King Felipe VI and definitively approved by the Congress of Deputies on 11 December 2025, entered into force on 28 December.

The law sets, for the first time, mandatory minimum quality parameters for customer care services provided by companies that deliver basic services of general interest —water, gas and electricity, transport, postal services, electronic communications and financial services— as well as by large companies with 250 or more workers or more than EUR 50 million in annual turnover. In the financial sector, the new law is supplementary to the sectoral legislation, and supervision continues to correspond to the Bank of Spain, the National Securities Market Commission and the Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds. The initiative, presented by the Government on 29 February 2024 and processed with 234 amendments to the text, is framed within the New Consumer Agenda of the European Commission and milestone 436 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

A shield against financial exclusion

The preamble starts from an explicit diagnosis: a substantial number of Spanish municipalities lack a bank branch, and digital channels are not always suited to the familiarity and knowledge of part of the population. The available statistical information shows lower digital proficiency among older people, those with lower incomes and residents of smaller municipalities, groups that the law considers the most vulnerable to the lack of access to financial services.

Strengthening of the Customer Ombudsman

The reform of Law 44/2002 requires banks, credit financial institutions, payment institutions and electronic money institutions, insurers, pension fund managers, real estate lenders, credit intermediaries and investment services firms to have a customer care department separate from commercial services, and allows them to appoint an independent Customer Ombudsman of recognised standing.

• The decision of the Customer Ombudsman in favor of the complaint is binding on the entity, without prejudice to judicial protection, conflict resolution mechanisms and administrative protection.
• Entities shall have one month —or the period provided for in Article 69 of Royal Decree-Law 19/2018 for payment services— to rule on each complaint or claim.
• A complete processing procedure is regulated (Articles 29 bis to 29 septies) and Articles 6 and 9 to 16 of Order ECO/734/2004 are repealed.

Personalized attention and accessible channels

The personalized provision of the service must take into account the personal circumstances of each customer:

• age and disability status;
• status as a foreign national and their administrative situation;
• level of digital skills;
• the characteristics of the geographic area in which the person resides, in terms of population.

Entities must ensure in-person, telephone or remote channels appropriate to these circumstances and provide specific telephone assistance resources for vulnerable people or those at risk of financial exclusion. Automated answering machines are prohibited as the exclusive means of assistance, telephone calls may not cost more than a standard call nor be redirected to premium-rate numbers, and staff shall receive specific prior training in assisting vulnerable consumers, particularly older people and persons with disabilities.

Companies shall have twelve months from the entry into force to adapt their customer service, so that the new rights will be fully enforceable from the end of 2026. For people over 65 and for residents in municipalities without bank branches, the law turns into a legal obligation what until now depended on the commercial will of each entity, and reinforces the first line of defense of the financial consumer before going to the supervisor or the courts.

Source: Boletín Oficial del Estado, No. 312, of 27 December 2025 (official reference: Law 10/2025, of 26 December, regulating customer service).