18.11.2020  Opening address of the conference “Consumers and the postCOVID mortgage market” ADICAE Margarita Delgado Deputy Governor  Good afternoon. I would like to thank ADICAE for kindly inviting me to address you on the opening of this conference on the post-COVID mortgage market. Allow me a minor comment regarding the conference title: I fear it is still too soon to talk about the mortgage market situation after COVID, although there is evidently no lack of will to do so. The latest science news on the progress of the different vaccines gives us hope that we may shortly look to the future without seeing the pandemic on the horizon. Let us trust this will be so. In any event, beyond the effects this health crisis may be having in the short term, housing affordability has been a very relevant subject in Spanish society for decades. Worldwide, we are one of the countries with the highest homeownership percentages, and the mortgage market has unquestionably been a decisive factor in making such housing affordability possible. This conference is directed at consumers, although if you will allow me the technical detail, national accounts treats house purchases as “investment”, not as consumption. This is clearly the case and, almost always, this is the most important investment that we “consumers” make in our lives. Given the importance and scale of this purchase, the authorities should watch over individuals’ interests.
Clearly, in economic terms, the cost of litigiousness and its terrible effect on the reputation of the entire sector more than exceeds any hypothetical benefits that individual banks might have obtained through questionable practices. Society has clearly evolved and, in tandem, so have demands regarding the transparency, diligence, rigour and integrity expected of banks. I believe the sector is responding to this challenge, which involves achieving a significant cultural change in the way banks relate to their customers. I have pointed out that it is premature to analyse the results of this Law in terms of potential improvements to legal certainty, but we can see a change in the number of complaints submitted to the Banco de España. As you will know, in recent years the problems related to mortgage loans have led to the change in the number of complaints lodged with the Banco de España. This is due in particular to two issues: the above-mentioned floor clauses and mortgage loan arrangement costs, which saw a record number of complaints submitted in 2017. However, mortgage loan complaints made last year fell to levels of a decade ago. We expect this trend to continue. But apart from one-off changes in the time series, I wish to emphasise the fact that the problems behind these complaints stem from operations entered into prior to the enactment of the Law in question.