More than 7,000 complaints lodged against banks every day - Telegraph

More than 7,000 complaints lodged against banks every day - Telegraph

Once upon a time a banker told me they built in "complaints shrinkage" of more than 5% of all new business, a bit like shops and shoplifting but more perverse, yes it is par for the course but the fact is that 90% of those who might have a valid complaint are too afraid to risk losing their 'facility'. As one recent complainant to saverjustice said: "the man at the call centre asked me if I wanted to make the complaint 'formal' and if i did it woudl be best to find another bank who would take me in, he suggested the Co-Op". let's look at this carefully, the FSA rules say that a complaint is an expression of disatisfaction whether made orally or in writing, the bank rep wanted the complainant to make it "formal" which means the banks own "rules" do not comply with the regulations. When I met the FSA I asked how many FSA staff supervise the banks the lady said "we have sixteen people supervising Barclays and they only look at the prudential requirements". I was stunned, still am, how on earth can the FSA ensure that the sales processes and complaints handling of the banks is up to its standards (whatever they are on a given day) when they only have sixteen people supervising a bank with more than 50,000 employees all on targets and bonuses?

To me the FSA loks like the local police force, they use up all their resorces on paperwork and easy targets, in the FSA's case it is the small IFA firms who as it happens 'generate' a tiny fraction of teh complaints.

Regulation is bust, society is in dire need of regulatory balance, I see less each day.

By the way, I am a regulatory consultant with almost three decades of experience in bad regulation created by bad government policy, blame the people you vote for and the 'architects' they employ who created every duff regulator to date and will create the next one.. oh and the same regulators (people) who have been around as long as I have.

FSA and FOS at odds?

I refer to Section 39 of the Information Tribunal Decision dated 13 October 2008.

It would appear that the FSA took advice from Leading Counsel regarding marketing literature. The advice given, apparently accepted by the FSA, was that if this material could show that it had sufficiently indicated the need for the product to achieve a higher growth rate then that firm could avoid a determination that it had entered into a contractual warranty. This is at total odds with the methodology of the FOS. The FSA's Counsel seems to advise that if it is in the literature then the policyholder should have read the documents and, if they did not understand, should have questioned the fact. The FOS does not accept that an illustration, product literature and a 'cooling-off' notice is sufficient for a complainant to understand there was a risk involved.

Presumably the FOS have also taken Counsel's advice and this conflicts with that given to the FSA. Why has this inconsistency not been addressed?