Advertising

Information disclosure by credit institutions and financial companies regarding their financial products and services, namely in advertising, has a dominant influence on the willingness and the decision-making process of bank customers. Due to its importance, preliminary information must also be subject to appropriate principles of transparency and accuracy.

Banco de Portugal’s supervising model as far as information requirements are concerned rests on three main principles:

i) Ex-post supervision, where the first level of compliance with the principles is based on the self-accountability of the credit institutions and financial companies;

ii) Compliance monitoring by Banco de Portugal: on a regular basis, over all media; where both general and specific contents are new or specially complex and accordingly carry bigger risks for bank customers; or whenever there are signs of irregular behaviour by a credit institution or financial company;

iii) Risk assessment, taking into consideration: inter alia, the size of the target public of a given campaign; information inaccuracy; the evaluation of potential damage; the contagion risk and the possibility of damage control.

The main principles of financial promotion supervision are transparency, accuracy, balance, lawfulness, truthfulness, and the right of the consumers to clear information.

This model applies to credit institutions and financial companies subject to the supervision of Banco de Portugal, which disclose information on financial products and services through the media, either audiovisual, oral, in writing or other (leaflets and emailing), institutional promotion excluded.