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From Credit Today. Today.
Keep complaining folks
FOS to name and shame businesses
19/03/2009
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) will begin to name and shame firms from September by publishing business-specific complaint data every six months.
The ombudsman will publish the data in respect of financial businesses with at least 30 new cases and 30 closed cases during the six-month period. The information will comprise the numbers of new cases and the percentage of closed cases where there has been a change of outcome in favour of the consumer.
FOS, headed up by Walter Merricks (pictured), will also publish the average percentage change in outcome, based on all the cases it has resolved in respect of all financial businesses during the relevant period.
The ombudsman will provide a breakdown of the data according to the five product groups that the FSA intends to use for complaints reporting from August 2009.
This will cover banking, home finance products such as mortgages, general insurance and pure protection, life and pensions and investments. In a statement released FOS said it has received notices of concerns over how publication of the data could undermine consumer confidence in financial services, and therefore increase the savings and protection gap.
But FOS’ statement said: "A number of public-interest arguments have been put forward in favour of publishing business-specific complaint data. But the key consideration is that, having carefully considered the position, we believe that publishing the data will facilitate the resolution of disputes quickly and with minimum formality.
"The complaint-handling rules require consumers to give financial businesses up to eight weeks to try and resolve complaints before they can be referred to the ombudsman service."
The statement added: "So the differing approaches of different financial businesses to complaint-handling play a key role in shaping the inflow of work to the ombudsman service and its subsequent handling."
Keep complaining folks
FOS to name and shame businesses
19/03/2009
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) will begin to name and shame firms from September by publishing business-specific complaint data every six months.
The ombudsman will publish the data in respect of financial businesses with at least 30 new cases and 30 closed cases during the six-month period. The information will comprise the numbers of new cases and the percentage of closed cases where there has been a change of outcome in favour of the consumer.
FOS, headed up by Walter Merricks (pictured), will also publish the average percentage change in outcome, based on all the cases it has resolved in respect of all financial businesses during the relevant period.
The ombudsman will provide a breakdown of the data according to the five product groups that the FSA intends to use for complaints reporting from August 2009.
This will cover banking, home finance products such as mortgages, general insurance and pure protection, life and pensions and investments. In a statement released FOS said it has received notices of concerns over how publication of the data could undermine consumer confidence in financial services, and therefore increase the savings and protection gap.
But FOS’ statement said: "A number of public-interest arguments have been put forward in favour of publishing business-specific complaint data. But the key consideration is that, having carefully considered the position, we believe that publishing the data will facilitate the resolution of disputes quickly and with minimum formality.
"The complaint-handling rules require consumers to give financial businesses up to eight weeks to try and resolve complaints before they can be referred to the ombudsman service."
The statement added: "So the differing approaches of different financial businesses to complaint-handling play a key role in shaping the inflow of work to the ombudsman service and its subsequent handling."
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