During the last month many clients have received SMS text messages, emails and phone calls from their Spanish banks asking them to come into the local branch to verify their identification.

The reason behind this sudden urge of ‘professionalism’ has come about because of the law ‘Ley 10/2010 of 28 April’ which requires credit institutions to identify all their customers with whom they have business relations or perform operations.

This obligation is specified in the need of digital copy of the identity document before April 30, 2015.

Money laundering is a massive problem in Spain and more recently there have been a number of high profile cases of tax evasion, bribery and corruption and all of these come under the ‘misuse of financial systems’ heading.

If you have been contacted by your Spanish banks and are unsure of the legitimacy of the call we urge you to contact your local branch as soon as possible, failure to do so can result in your accounts being blocked and services and utility bills being unpaid.

For more information or advice please contact us directly.