Record Number Of Complaints & Enquiries To Banking Ombudsman

Record Number Of Complaints & Enquiries To Banking Ombudsman

Complaints and enquiries to the Banking Ombudsman Scheme are at historically high levels, but the number of disputes requiring investigation is down, Banking Ombudsman Deborah Battell says.

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme today released its 2010/11 annual results. The scheme completed 1857 cases and helped more than 4,000 banking customers resolve disputes with their banking service provider.

While the number of disputes was 18 percent below the previous year, when the ING issue dominated workloads, the number of new enquiries and complaints to the scheme increased.

“Encouragingly, the drop in disputes – those issues that have already been through a participant’s complaints process but need our help – indicates that there has been an improvement in our participants’ customer service and complaints-handling processes. Given the global financial crisis, it also signals more active management of customers who have defaulted on their loans.”

“Enquiries and complaints, on the other hand, are matters that haven’t yet been through a participant’s complaints handling process. They may be customers ringing to find out about their rights, where they stand on an issue or how to get the bank to help them deal with their complaint,” said Ms Battell.

The continuing high level of complaints also signals that the effects of the global financial crisis are still being felt. The main issues during the year were hardship-related, mortgage and loan defaults, and investment. There was also a big jump in complaints about current accounts; about half of these related to claims of negligence, maladministration or errors.

“Publicity around the new requirement for nancial service providers to belong to a dispute resolution scheme appears to be one of the reasons for the continuing high level of enquiries and complaints,” said Ms Battell.

“Interestingly, it would appear that bank customers, who have been able to complain to the Banking Ombudsman for nearly 20 years, are now better informed. New scheme participants - most building societies and two of the largest credit unions – have attracted only a small number of enquiries.”

“Banking Ombudsman Scheme participants are the largest players in New Zealand’s nancial markets,” said Ms Battell. “As most New Zealanders belong to a banking service it is not surprising that we receive higher numbers of complaints than other dispute resolution schemes in the financial services sector.”

Ms Battell said the scheme was well positioned for handling the increase in complaints and enquiries.

“Now that the investment-related issues that dominated our workloads for the past three years have been resolved, we have no need for a waiting list and are resolving matters much more quickly. We are also putting more focus on being the ‘fence at the top of the cliff’, providing quick guides and information on our web and Facebook sites that help customers and banks avoid making mistakes and improve the banking experience.”

The Annual Report will be available from the publications section of the Banking Ombudsman’s website: http://www.bankomb.org.nz/eng/Publications

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