The recently issued Spanish National Securities Market Commission's guide on FinTech looks at the different types of FinTech companies and the considerations to bear in mind when using such services.

What has happened?

The Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has published a quick guide on FinTech, noting this concept refers to "all those activities that involve the use of innovation and technological developments for the design, offer and provision of financial products and services".

What does this mean?

Among the entities that develop activities in this sector, the CNMV highlights the traditional financial entities that are already established and new companies which provide added value to some of the links in the value chain in the financial sector.

This guide includes a basic explanation of the sector, such as the different types of FinTechs that exist in the market (depending on the type of product or service provided and their business model) and a list of considerations to observe when requesting these services.

In this regard, the CNMV has established seven areas, depending on the type of service provided:

  • advisory services and asset management,
  • personal finance,
  • alternative financing,
  • payment services,
  • Big Data,
  • online customer identification, and
  • cryptoassets.

The CNMV points out that the application of technology brings significant improvements to the financial market and greater convenience for consumers, but it also highlights the possible risks these new services may entail due to the fact that the regulatory development of these services is still at an early stage.

In another development, the government gave the go ahead to the Spanish regulatory sandbox this week. We will review this significant development shortly.  The innovation projects that are intended to be part of the Spanish sandbox must be in their preparation phase in order to be part of the first Cohort.

Next steps

Getting around regulations affecting FinTechs isn't easy, so get in touch if we can help your organisation ensure it doesn't fall foul of a constantly evolving legal situation.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.