Number of complaints about insurers and brokers decreases, while number of those about banks and MFOs increases: 2025 Q1 results
In January—March, the number of complaints to the Bank of Russia from financial consumers and investors increased by 23.6% year on year. Almost 95,000 complaints were received in total.
The number of complaints about insurance decreased by 44.6%. This was mainly because the procedure for contesting the bonus-malus coefficient (BMC) changed. This issue was the most common among complaints about compulsory motor third-party liability insurance. Now customers may independently find their BMC in their personal accounts on the National Insurance Information System website. If they disagree on its value, they may also leave a request there to recalculate it. The number of complaints about accident and health insurance and life insurance also declined.
There were 27.5% less complaints about professional securities market participants, while complaints from investors about difficulties with managing assets due to sanctions took a plunge, dropping fourfold.
In the segment related to non-governmental pension funds (NPFs), complaints about people's disagreement with the transition from the Social Fund of Russia to NPFs, as well as between NPFs, decreased by 31.4%.
Complaints about touting paid services in lending continued to decline. Their number fell by 42.2%, including because since last year, lenders are obliged to inform borrowers about the services they purchased together with loans and notify them of the right to reject these services within 30 days.
To counter fraudulent transactions, in July 2024, the Bank of Russia obliged banks to suspend suspicious transactions in order to prevent theft of funds. Thus, in 2025 Q1, as compared to the same period of 2024, the number of complaints from people significantly increased due to the suspension of remote banking services (RBS). This resulted in the overall increase in the number of complaints related to banks. Compared to 2024 Q1, their number was 36.8% higher. Furthermore, based on the results of handling the majority of complaints regarding the blocking of RBS, banks confirmed their use for fraudulent purposes.
The percentage of complaints about microfinance organisations (MFOs) rose by more than 10%. Consumers complained about difficulties in returning money when rejecting additional services and about loans issued without their consent. There were also complaints from MFO clients with a demand made under the impact of recommendations on social media to recalculate their debt.