Which are the financial products and services involved?
The information to be made public comprises the financial products and services generally offered by the banks to their customers (physical persons unless indicated otherwise), as follows:
- Credit cards (information for consumers and businesses)
- Savings accounts
- Bank current accounts
- Electronic transfers
- Mortgage loans
- Personal loans

Who has the legal obligation to report?
In the case of credit card information, financial institutions under Law 21526 and non-financial organizations issuing closed system credit cards have the obligation to report to the Superintendence of Financial and Foreign Exchange Institutions through the BCRA's site.
With regard to the other items, only financial institutions have the obligation to report.
The submission of required information involves compliance with the Reporting System as specifically defined by the Superintendence of Financial and Foreign Exchange Institutions (Communications "A" 4184, "A" 4191, and supplementary information). Failure to provide the required information is subject to the penalties generally applied to non-compliance with regulations.

What type of information will be provided to the users of financial services?
Basically, users will have access to quantitative and qualitative information on each of the products and services involved. Thus, data will be provided on the prices (excluding national, provincial and municipal taxes, except when expressly indicated otherwise) of the various items (interest rates, fees, charges, etc.) relating to such products and services, the features of their supply (terms and conditions, frequency, etc.), along with the basic requirements set by each bank for their purchase or use.
Interest rate information does not cover prize incentives, bonuses or any other additionals.
It should be noted that the information to be disclosed solely includes the most relevant charges and fees applied by the institutions to the products and services involved under the terms and conditions freely agreed upon with their customers. Therefore, it is likely that some items might not be covered by the information available as they are not representative of the general conditions observed in the financial market and hence non-comparable.
Which transactions are not included under the new transparency policy?
In this first stage, the information to be disclosed does not include any data either on premium products or services, packages of products or services, or auto loans.
Neither does it comprise information on bonuses (whether related or not to product packages) offered by institutions according to their marketing policies, except when expressly indicated otherwise. For instance, credit card bonus programs may be checked (if available) through links to the issuing institutions' websites.
Is it likely that the information related to a given product or service or to some institution may not be available?
Yes. In the case of institutions which do not offer a given product or service (e.g. mortgage loans) or which, because of their specialization or marketing policies, do not offer any of the products or services involved, such information will not be available.

To which period of time will the information apply?
Information provided will be that available as of the last day of the month prior to the month when the inquiry is made. For instance, the information for September corresponds to data available as of August 31.

How often will information be updated?
At an initial stage, reporting institutions will be requested to update their information on a monthly basis.
As of what date will the new monthly information be available?
As of the 6th working day of the month following the month to which the information applies.
The information relating to August 2004 will be available on a staggered basis between the 14th and the 23rd of the current month. This is due to the large volume of data to be uploaded at this initial stage. In order to avoid bottlenecks in data transfer, a staggered upload timeframe has been established according to the groups of institutions set up.
Where and when will this information be available?
All the information subject to transparency policy will be available in the BCRA's website, www.bcra.gov.ar, where users will find an application to assist them in the search of information and presentation of results.
The search can be made by product, comprising all, one or some of the items, and involving all, one or several of the institutions reporting on each transaction, depending on the user's inquiry.
Search results will be displayed on a table, where the rows show the selected data and the columns, the institutions chosen by the user, so that a comparison can be made of the same items against the different institutions covered in the search.
As to the meaning of the several items included in each transaction, the user will have access to glossaries with simple definitions of each term.
The tool also enables the user to print data consulted and transfer them to a spreadsheet.
Additionally, the Under Secretariat for Competition Defense and Consumer Defense will continue with its work on transparency, using this same information for the assessment and dissemination of market performance to the population as a whole, highlighting any new and relevant fact.
To this end, the Superintendence of Financial and Foreign Exchange Institutions and the Ministry of Economy and Production Secretariat for Technical Coordination, to which the said Under Secretariat reports, have signed an agreement of cooperation and exchange of the information available in the database under this transparency policy and of the information provided by the Under Secretariat in the performance of its duties, with a view to facilitating compliance with the corresponding legal obligations and the coordination of future related actions.

How will financial services users benefit from having this information?
They will basically be able to:
- Access information on a variety of financial products and services in a fast and easy way.
- Have a vast volume of relevant updated and comparable information available on each product.
- Have more detailed information on the various offers available in the market.
- Manage the decision-making process based on the information disclosed.