The Bank of Russia sets up Single Public Complaint Centre
The Service for Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion launched the Public Complaint Division in Vladimir on 3 March 2017. Starting this month, public complaints and appeals across all Russia will be directed to Vladimir and to a similar Saratov-based division which was opened in September 2016. This completes the creation of a single-window system to handle public complaints and appeals at the Bank of Russia.
As evidenced by the operational practice of the Saratov division, the regulator may potentially reply to roughly 37% of complaints and appeals during first one to two days, as these questions are categorised as wide-spread or recurrent. Answers to such questions are prepared in various Bank of Russia departments and are further forwarded to the ‘single window’. “In most cases, answers explain rights to citizens so that they are properly informed for practical purposes before it is too late, – explained Mikhail Mamuta, Head of the Service for Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion. – It often happens that answers received later than the 30-day period prescribed by law only state the problem rather than help resolve it. For example, the cooling off period under a voluntary insurance contract is in force only during five days after its signature”.
The new approach helped to triple labour productivity at the Service for Consumer Protection and Financial Inclusion, and it takes from 40 minutes to two hours to prepare answers to some questions. Complaints requiring a more in-depth analysis are re-directed to the specialists of the Service and to respective Bank of Russia departments.
In addition to being fast and efficient, the regulator seeks to improve the quality of its answers to complaints and appeals. The key aim is to give simple and clear explanations, making them at the same time less formal and more understandable for consumers.
The new complaint- and appeal-handling system also constitutes a high-precision tool used to analyse problems across all segments in the financial market, as well as problems concerning specific financial products and emerging in specific regions. It will also set grounds for a more efficient implementation of financial conduct supervision in the sphere of consumer protection. This will consist of a set of measures initiated currently by the Bank of Russia and aimed at preventing the violation of financial consumers’ rights.
