Services for the elderly – banks bow to pressure
Financial institutions and clients assess progress with promised improvements
AN AGREEMENT enabling people aged over 65 to continue using bank books to keep track of their accounts has been reached between the government and associations of banks and of their customers.
Minister for economic affairs Nadia Calviño highlighted the ‘positive impact’ of protocols and codes of good practice to support elderly or disabled people, to provide in-person services in rural areas, and to relieve pressure on vulnerable families with variable interest rate mortgages.
She said they had agreed to make further progress with personalised attention for clients and relief for families most affected by the Euribor interest rate rise, paying particular attention to interest rate forecasts and returns on savings.
Regarding the February 2022 agreement to guarantee inclusion of older people, which included a commitment by credit institutions to provide them with better access to financial services, the measures adopted were found to have been useful, but should be brought in more quickly.
The associations representing banks and their clients actually agreed there had been progress, with a notable increase in branches opening for longer and access to services either at desks or by helping older people to use these features on cash machines, and prioritising them at busy times of day.
According to the banks, in the last year they have doubled the number of branches with extended personal attention, benefitting 6.3 million older clients, personal telephone attention has grown by 50%, and they have adapted 91% of cash machines and 80% of digital channels.
The time taken to repair broken cash machines has also been reduced and there has been an emphasis on training employees to attend to older people.
Since the road-map to better include rural areas was signed by bank associations in October 2022, they have made progress with the pledge to provide a place offering financial services in all municipalities with more than 500 inhabitants, in the form of a generic cash machine.
Banks have also set up at least one point with in-person attention in 79 new municipalities with 70,000 inhabitants.
The code of good practice regarding variable interest rate mortgages is now in full effect, with 97% of the market having agreed to offer the government’s measures to contain payment increases, and 9,000 applications received from clients since January, 15% more than the monthly average under the old system.
As well as the commitment to maintain bank books (‘libretas de ahorro’) for people over 65, the banks will study how they could inform clients about the options available to them to reduce mortgage payments, including early repayment with no charges and changing from a variable rate to a fixed rate for free during 2023.
And a deal was struck with the Spanish federation of municipalities and provinces (FEMP) to provide 100% of towns with over 500 inhabitants with in-person financial services.
It was also agreed to set up a permanent committee to continually oversee and evaluate the banks’ adherence to their commitments.
The mortgage relief code will be evaluated in June to identify possible improvements and to review conditions for entitlement in line with however interest rates, salaries and other relevant variables evolve.
The Bank of Spain will publish
an annual report on application of protocols to include elderly, disabled and rural people, and it was agreed to work on possible pilot schemes to identify which measures are most effective.
The effectiveness of all these measures will play a decisive role in the future law to defend financial clients, which is currently going through parliamentary procedures.
The associations of bank customers underlined the importance of setting up the new authority to defend financial clients as soon as possible, which will be able to resolve conflicts with institutions, including those related to compliance with the code of good practices.
The decisions of this authority will be binding for financial institutions and free for customers.