Consumer credit intermediary in Spain

A credit intermediary is anyone who, without being the lender, is professionally involved in getting the credit agreement concluded. The activity breaks down into four types of conduct worth keeping in mind, because any one of them is enough to fall within the perimeter: presenting or offering credit agreements to consumers; assisting them with the preparatory work; concluding the agreement on behalf of the lender; or brokering the agreement between the two.

The key point, and the reason so many companies find out late that they are in scope, is that the classification depends not on how the business describes itself but on what it does. A shop offering “pay in twelve months” at the till, a comparison site that sends the user to the finance company, a platform that pre-qualifies before referring, an advisor who processes the application for the customer: all of them are potentially acting as intermediaries. Whether the remuneration comes from the lender, the consumer or neither of them shapes the regime, but does not always take you out of it.

In Spain the subject is currently split across three laws that should not be confused. Law 2/2009 regulates intermediation for the conclusion of loan or credit agreements by companies other than credit institutions. Law 5/2019 regulates real estate credit intermediaries, with a regime of its own and registration with the Bank of Spain. And Law 16/2011 governs consumer credit; it is precisely the law that the reform will repeal and replace.

That fragmentation is what CCD2 sets out to fix. As the Bank of Spain summarizes it, the new directive introduces “the obligation of admission, registration and supervision for creditors and credit intermediaries” that carry out this activity. Until now, consumer credit had conduct rules; what is coming is an access regime.

Article 1 of Law 2/2009 defines its purpose: it regulates the granting of mortgage loans or credit and intermediation for the conclusion of loan or credit agreements, carried out on a professional basis by individuals or legal entities other than credit institutions. Credit institutions and activities governed by the rules on installment sales of movable goods are excluded.

Three obligations stem from it that already apply today:

• Registration (Article 3), under a dual system that we explain in the next section.
• Liability insurance or a bank guarantee (Article 7), which must be taken out before registration to cover liability towards consumers. The minimum amount is set by regulation.
• Free pre-contractual information, with different time limits depending on the activity: Article 14 regulates it for mortgage loans and Article 20 for intermediation, with minimum lead times of five and fifteen days respectively, including the company’s identity, the product’s features, the total price, the annual percentage rate and contractual rights.

The point to remember is that this insurance or guarantee is a precondition for registration, not a later requirement. A company that discovers today that it should have been registered cannot regularize its position in a single step: first it takes out the cover, then it registers.

The most common confusion is between the Bank of Spain register and the consumer registers. The Bank of Spain keeps the register of real estate credit intermediaries and real estate lenders, both categories under Law 5/2019. Consumer credit intermediation does not go there: it goes to the Law 2/2009 registers, which are regional, with the national exception for companies domiciled outside Spain. Anyone carrying out both activities will have to be in both places, and that is more common than it seems: see the real estate credit intermediary.

The regional nature of the register has a practical consequence that needs planning. A company operating in several autonomous communities faces not one procedure but several, with requirements and timelines that may not match. It is one of the reasons registration gets delayed: it is approached as a single formality when it is really a campaign.

The fourth final provision of the draft Consumer Credit Agreements Bill amends Law 2/2009 to set out the regime for intermediaries, and within it appears a category that did not exist as such until now: the ancillary credit intermediary (intermediario a título subsidiario). This is someone who intermediates in credit on an ancillary basis to their main activity — the shop that sells and also finances, the service provider that offers payment in installments.

The proposed regime has three features that set it apart from the ordinary intermediary. First, registration is national, not regional, which solves at a stroke the problem of having to register in several autonomous communities. Second, there are exceptions to the liability insurance or bank guarantee requirement that does apply as a general rule. And third, they are exempt from certain information requirements, in recognition of their ancillary role.

What is not relaxed are the conduct obligations towards the customer. The draft bill strengthens the duty to handle complaints and to use out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms, and provides for consumer access to the Financial Customer Protection Authority (Autoridad de Defensa del Cliente Financiero). In other words: the reform simplifies entry, not liability.

For a merchant or a platform that offers financing today without giving it a second thought, this combination is good news and a warning at the same time. The good news is that the way into the perimeter will be lighter than for a professional intermediary. The warning is that the way in exists, and that staying outside it will no longer be a gray area.

The draft royal decree implementing the law includes, in its sole additional provision, a register of ancillary lenders: a public administrative register managed by the Directorate-General for Consumer Affairs. Those required to register are suppliers of goods or service providers that are not micro-enterprises and that grant interest-free credit with limited charges.

That is exactly the profile of the merchant that finances purchases in installments without charging interest: the car dealership, the dental clinic, the training academy, the appliance store, the home renovation company. Until now this business has operated in territory with hardly any specific regulation, because free credit fell outside the scope of consumer credit rules. CCD2 changes that: as the Bank of Spain summarizes it, its scope extends to agreements free of interest and without any other charges, to those below €200, to those up to €100,000, to those repayable within three months with minimal charges and to overrunning (tacit overdrafts).

The planned registration documents include evidence of meeting the legal requirements, the company name, registered address and tax ID (NIF), an explanatory report on the lending activities and a description of the control mechanisms and staff training. And there is a recurring obligation worth putting in the calendar: reporting, before March 31 of each year, the volume and number of agreements granted, together with an independent expert’s certificate.

That certificate is the detail that will catch most projects off guard. It is not a self-declaration: it is an annual external verification that has to be budgeted and contracted. It should be planned before the first financial year, not in March of the following one.

The 24-hour point deserves special attention because it directly affects the channel where most intermediation happens: the point of sale and the online checkout. There, pre-contractual information is, by definition, provided minutes before signing up. As a result, the reminder of the right of withdrawal becomes part of the flow rather than a contract clause, and it has to be designed and provable. It is a product change, not a documentation change.

As for the timeline: the directive entered into force on November 19, the transposition deadline expired on November 20, 2025 and its provisions apply from November 20, 2026. Spain has not yet passed the transposing law. You can see the full picture on the CCD2 page.