The new supervisor to resolve claims against banks and insurance companies is stuck in Congress.

The Financial Consumer Protection Authority was one of the flagship projects of Nadia Calviño , former Vice President and Minister of Economy. A new supervisor considered a "priority" for Pedro Sánchez's government, it would serve to resolve all complaints filed by users against banks, insurers, and investment companies in a single body. These complaints are currently distributed, as appropriate, between the Bank of Spain, the Directorate General of Insurance, and the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) . However, its creation remains unknown, and there is no date for its implementation, despite the push that its successor, Carlos Cuerpo, also wanted to give it.

In the previous term, the law creating this supervisor was on the verge of passing in the Congress of Deputies, but then Pedro Sánchez called elections, and it fell through. Calviño then headed to the European Investment Bank, abandoning her flagship project. Carlos Cuerpo held and still holds the Economy portfolio and proposed approving the Financial Customer Authority.

In March 2024, the Ministry and the Moncloa government once again announced the launch of this new supervisor with great fanfare, which has drawn criticism from the entire financial sector; even institutions such as the CNMV and the Bank of Spain have expressed doubts about the model.

Since then, its passage through the Congress of Deputies has barely made any progress, where it remains stuck awaiting a push. The measure was given urgent processing. It was even expected to be approved by 2024, something that soon became clear that this would not be feasible. Parliamentary sources indicate that the government is facing processing problems in Congress, as there is a high risk of it failing due to the parliamentary difficulties faced by Pedro Sánchez's administration, which needs parties such as ERC, Junts, and PNV to push it through.

The ministry now emphasizes, more than a year later, that the law "remains a priority for the Government" and that it intends to have it approved by Parliament "as soon as possible." However, on this occasion, they are cautious about the timing and have no forecast for when it might be given the green light.

The logjam is occurring in the Congressional Economic Commission, where the reluctance of the parliamentary groups is a reality. The deadline for submitting amendments has passed. And now, negotiations on the compromise amendments have been going on for weeks. The road ahead in the commission is still expected to be long. For now, the government appears to have won the favor of ERC by agreeing to include the promotion of the Catalan Institute of Finance as a public bank in this law. But the executive needs to go further.

When it was on the verge of being passed in the previous legislature, the Popular Party (PP) did not raise insurmountable obstacles to its approval and, in fact, abstained. That position of the PP became the opposition in the second half of 2024, and they even submitted a comprehensive amendment to overturn the Authority, which was rejected by the Congress of Deputies. The PP's rejection, at this point, is immutable.

With the creation of this body, financial users could submit their banking, insurance, and financial investment complaints to a single body, which would handle them free of charge and within a maximum period of 90 days. Resolutions would be binding on the financial institution when the claim amount is less than 20,000 euros .

It would be financed by a fee paid by financial institutions, which would vary depending on the number of complaints filed with each institution and the number of resolutions in favor of the client.