1. What is the current legal landscape for your practice area in your jurisdiction?

Spain’s securitisation market broadly follows EU trends, with a predominance of privately placed STS and SRT deals, warehouses and synthetic structures. Spanish law securitisation funds remain the reference vehicle and are widely used beyond traditional assets, including infrastructure, stadium and whole‑business revenue streams and energy transition projects.

The market is increasingly shaped by the review of the EU Securitisation Regulation and CRR under the Savings and Investments Union agenda, which seeks to revive issuance by simplifying rules and making capital treatment more risk‑sensitive, particularly for senior and STS tranches. PCS has been influential in highlighting that current capital requirements for high‑quality STS securitisations are excessively conservative relative to historical performance and undermine the policy goal of using securitisation to support bank lending and SME financing.

The emerging reform package, including adjusted risk‑weight floors, a more nuanced p‑factor and targeted changes to due diligence and private‑deal reporting, should over time support a deeper, more efficient Spanish securitisation market.

2. What three essential pieces of advice would you give to clients involved in your practice area matters?

Firstly, originators and sponsors should front‑load regulatory and structuring analysis (STS/SRT, risk retention, investor base) with a clear view of the evolving EU framework, so that Spanish transactions are robust today but positioned to benefit from more risk‑sensitive capital calibrations tomorrow.

Secondly, investing in high‑quality data, servicing, reporting and modelling is critical, as the reforms move towards more principle‑based SRT assessments and streamlined but still demanding transparency, and supervisors will expect credible, quantitative self‑assessments of significant risk transfer.

Lastly, clients should build structural flexibility (taps, prefunding/replenishment, potential ESG/green labelling) to adapt to Level 2 measures and supervisory practice and to capture upside from improved capital treatment for resilient, well‑protected STS and SRT structures once the reform package is fully implemented.

3. What are the greatest threats and opportunities in your practice area law in the next 12 months?

As regards threats:

• The main short‑term threat is regulatory uncertainty: the direction of travel is supportive, but the timing and impact of the amendments to the EU Securitisation Regulation and CRR, as well as revised SRT and STS technical standards, remain in flux at EU and Council level. Spanish banks planning SRT deals must navigate a transition from relatively mechanical tests towards more principle‑based, model‑driven assessments, which may lengthen approval processes and raise data and documentation expectations during the implementation phase. Persistent market volatility and rate dynamics also affect investor appetite and spreads, especially while capital rules are perceived as mis‑calibrated for senior STS tranches.
• In parallel, the phased‑in CRR3 “output floor” can cap capital relief from securitisation/SRT even where securitisation‑specific charges fall, adding pressure to portfolio selection and economics. Private‑deal reporting is also evolving (ESMA’s work on simplified, aggregate private templates), so participants should be ready to run both today’s templates and a lighter EU private pack until the final regime is settled.
• At the same time, Spain’s delayed transposition of the Credit Servicers/Credit Purchasers Directive introduces residual uncertainty for NPL trades and servicing models.

As regards opportunities:

• Once the reform is in force, more proportionate capital requirements, simplified due diligence and more risk‑sensitive risk‑weight floors should materially improve the economics of high‑quality Spanish securitisations and support greater use of the product to fund infrastructure, sports and real estate‑related revenues and energy transition assets. PCS and other market bodies expect this to unlock additional bank balance‑sheet capacity for lending to households and SMEs, in line with the EU’s policy objectives.
• The Commission’s package also points to broader Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) eligibility (including for a “resilient” STS tier) and a clearer, more harmonised framework for STS on‑balance‑sheet (synthetic) securitisations thanks to the EBA Guidelines – together, these changes should support SRT pipelines once effective. For originators with credible pipelines, the EU Green Bond Standard – now applicable and expressly accommodating securitisations via an originator‑level use‑of‑proceeds approach– can widen the investor base for “green” securitisations.
• Finally, the EU DLT Pilot Regime and CNMV implementation allow controlled experimentation with tokenised financial instruments, which some Spanish FT issuers may leverage for issuance or post‑trade efficiencies.

4. How do you ensure high client satisfaction levels are maintained by your practice?

We field lean, partner‑led teams that combine product expertise in securitisation with sector knowledge in sports, infrastructure and energy, which allows us to anticipate commercial and regulatory issues and keep execution smooth even in a moving regulatory environment.

Our clients value having a single integrated team covering capital markets, regulatory, tax and real estate/energy aspects, as well as our proactive coordination with arrangers, rating agencies and supervisors on SRT, STS and disclosure points.

We complement this with a firm wide culture of responsible innovation. Our internal governance framework for AI and data tools ensures that any technology deployed in transactions – from document review automation to analytics and modelling – is used safely, consistently and with clear human oversight. Through our global Data & AI Literacy programme, expanded in 2026, our teams develop the technical understanding required to apply these tools with sound legal judgement, which clients increasingly value in complex, cross border mandates.

We also closely track EU legislative and supervisory developments and industry input, including PCS analysis of mis‑calibration and reporting simplification, and translate them into practical structuring and capital‑optimisation solutions for Spanish originators and investors.

Feedback from recent mandates highlights our responsiveness and ability to deliver innovative yet executable structures under tight timetables and evolving prudential expectations.

5. What technological advancements are reshaping your practice area law and how can clients benefit from them?

Enhanced data analytics, portfolio modelling and reporting tools are increasingly central to Spanish securitisations, supporting better performance modelling and stress‑testing, especially for newer or whole‑business asset classes.In the context of a more principle‑based SRT and more granular, risk‑sensitive capital rules, these tools underpin the credible quantitative analysis that supervisors will expect for significant risk transfer and capital calculations.

Across the firm, these advancements are reinforced by a structured “right tool for the right job” approach. DLA Piper has deployed Microsoft Copilot globally as a general AI assistant and is expanding the use of Harvey as a legal specific platform, both under strict governance standards covering data protection, risk assessment and human supervision. This controlled but ambitious adoption allows our Spanish securitisation team to combine technological efficiency with the high level of legal rigour required in STS and SRT transactions.

Our global Data & AI Literacy programme further strengthens these capabilities by ensuring that lawyers at all levels understand both the potential and the limitations of AI tools, enabling them to interpret outputs with appropriate legal judgement. This is increasingly relevant as supervisors shift towards more model driven evaluations in SRT transactions.

Digital platforms for investor communication and, in some cases, early tokenisation initiatives around securitised cash‑flows are also emerging, with the potential to streamline execution and broaden the investor base in line with the Commission’s objective of revitalising the EU securitisation market. As regards tokenisation, we note that the EU DLT Pilot Regime has been applicable since 23 March 2023 and the ESMA has published guidelines on how to submit a specific application for authorisation to operate a DLT market infrastructure. While securitisation tokens remain nascent, Spain’s framework allows experimentation with tokenised financial instruments on authorised DLT market infrastructures.

Finally, the European green bond regime embeds standardised pre‑/post‑issuance templates and supervised external reviewers; aligning securitisations that aim for a “green” label will require robust digital management‑information systems to evidence taxonomy‑aligned use‑of‑proceeds at the originator.