CML news & views

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is planning to make large firms publish information on how they handle complaints. The regulator wants to “drive up complaints-handling standards” and believes that showing how individual firms are performing is important for consumers.

The FSA plans to compel firms that receive 500 or more complaints in a six-month period to publish twice a year:

• how many complaints they have opened and closed;
• the percentage closed within eight weeks; and
• the percentage of complaints upheld.

Home finance was specifically identified by the regulator as one of the five product areas on which firms will have to supply information about complaints. The others are banking, general insurance and pure protection, life and pensions, and investments.

The FSA said the new requirements would improve how firms treat their customers and make them deal more effectively with complaints.

Meanwhile, the CML is hosting a mortgage complaints seminar at its headquarters in Bush House, London, on 23 March. The Financial Ombudsman Service’s corporate director, David Thomas, will give the keynote address, and the seminar will also include sessions on the Consumer Credit Act and treating customers fairly.