CIRBE, what is it and what is it for?
If you have recently applied for a loan at a bank or savings bank in Spain, surely this CIRBE sounds familiar to you.
CIRBE is the Bank of Spain's Risk Information Center, a public management database that contains practically all the loans, credits, guarantees and risks in general that financial institutions grant or contract with their clients.
Said entities have the obligation to inform the Bank of Spain about such risks (as well as their ownership) on a monthly basis, in such a way that the institution can know the total credits granted by all entities, thus favoring banking supervision and realization of studies on the situation of the sector, the country's economy and the health of the financial market.
In fact, any entity can request specific information on a holder from the Bank of Spain if the latter requests a risk operation, as long as it obtains their consent, of course. The data handled by the CIRBE is obviously confidential, so it cannot be freely consulted.
Normally, the questions by the banking entities are carried out in order to determine, in addition to the payment capacity and economic stability of a specific client, the debts incurred, thus being able to assess with better criteria the viability of granting or not borrowing money depending on your debt capacity.
Of course, any citizen who has ever applied for a loan or credit or acted as guarantor can freely access the information that CIRBE has about itself, and if this is not correct, request its rectification.
The so-called “fintech” , companies that grant microcredits or mini-credits practically immediately and that operate entirely online, are also subject to supervision, having to comply with the requirements and obligations established by the legislation for this purpose, specifically Law 16 / 2011 on contracting consumer credit and Law 22/2007 on distance marketing of financial services.
In CréditoSí , for example, we not only comply with the regulations scrupulously, but in our commitment to be responsible with our credits and lines of credit , as well as being totally transparent, we are adhered to the Spanish Association of Microloans (AEMIP), we are members of the National Association of Credit Financial Establishments and we have an ethical code through which we explain our business philosophy to our clients.