Number of complaints to Bank of Russia decreases: statistics for 2023 H1
In 2023 H1, the Bank of Russia received 169,100 complaints, which is 11.4% less than in January—June 2022.
There was a noticeable decline (-13.5%) in the number of complaints against banks, especially about issues related to sanctions, such as loan repayment holidays, foreign cash withdrawals and so on. Despite actively expanding retail lending, there were fewer complaints concerning this issue, with the number of mortgage-related complaints decreasing most significantly.
Excluding standard requests for correcting the bonus-malus coefficient, the number of complaints against insurers was down by 15.2%. These mass requests are prepared by intermediaries for a fee, but cannot be settled (for details, see the material on the Financial Culture website). In March—April, the number of complaints about the affordability of CMTPLI policies rose more than 2.5 times compared to early 2023. Owing to the supervisory measures taken by the Bank of Russia, already in June, the number of CMTPLI-related complaints dropped compared to May: complaints about electronic policies — 2.5 times and those about insurers’ refusals to sell policies in offices — by 27%.
Complaints against microfinance organisations became more frequent (+17.3%) because of fraudsters raising loans in another person’s name. Nevertheless, in 2023 Q2, the number of such complaints began to decrease. Additional measures for borrower identification are expected to support this tendency. The flow of unfounded requests for recalculating outstanding loan amounts, resulting from false information on the Internet (for details, see the Financial Culture website), considerably increased.
The number of complaints against professional securities market participants, mainly those associated with sanctions, dropped 4.5 times.
The number of complaints about misselling decreased by 19.3% due to the extensive supervisory measures taken by the Bank of Russia with regard to financial institutions which committed violations when selling investment products, primarily individual and endowment life insurance policies.