The Minister of the Economy, Carlos Body, announced this Wednesday the creation of a new brigade to fight against banking cyber fraud. This was stated by the head of the Executive’s economic policy after meeting with banking sector employers and financial user associations to discuss measures against increasingly frequent digital scams that particularly target the most vulnerable.
The brigade will be led by the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Digital Transformation, but will also include representatives of telecommunications operators, financial entities and the Bank of Spain. The idea is that the brigade functions as an “early warning and forceful response” mechanism to fraudulent actions and protects citizens against cyber-fraud.
“The presence of financial entities and telecommunications operators is essential within this brigade to understand what is happening, to jointly assume the needs we have to respond to this enormous challenge,” Corp added.
The minister is waiting for Congress to decide on Thursday whether to move forward with the law that regulates the financial client defense authority. A rule which, for the Economy, is essential to support the reimbursement of defrauded sums through its binding resolutions.
The brigade announced by the minister is in addition to other measures already adopted this year, such as the possibility for telephone operators to block numbers linked to fraud. Between February and August this year, more than 50 million calls and two million text messages were blocked, Corpus reported.
Mortgage relief extended for another year
Beyond the anti-fraud measures, the minister announced that the mortgage relief measures launched in 2022 will be extended by one year due to the sharp increase in interest rates from the European Central Bank (ECB).
The so-called code of practice, which facilitates the deferral of mortgage payments (albeit with a subsequent increase in fees) expired at the end of 2025, but will remain in force voluntarily for entities also in 2026.
Since its launch, it has benefited 7,747 families, but in 2025, only 733 mortgage creditors had benefited from its supervision. Although usage has been low in recent months, the ministry has chosen to agree with financial entities on an additional voluntary extension.
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