Financial services companies still have work to do on meeting the FSA's March deadline...
Financial services companies still have work to do on meeting the FSA's Marcsh deadline for treating customers fairly (TCF), according to an Ernst & Young survey.
The report highlights deficiencies in terms of complaints handling, with only 39% of respondents indicating they had fully integrated complaints handling with TCF. Most other firms recognise the importance of integration, but are still to act.
Steve Southall, financial services regulatory director for Ernst & Young, said: “Our survey shows that firms have made considerable progress on complaint handling over the last few years — but that they still have more to do. Given the FSA deadline of March 2007 for firms to implement TCF initiatives across a significant part of the business, senior management need to ensure that complaint handling, as well as other customer management processes, meets both customer and regulator expectations.
“In addition, the continued focus on complaint handling by the Financial Ombudsman Service, and the ongoing reviews by the Office of Fair Trading of payment protection insurance, and credit card and bank charges, means that complaint handling will remain a priority area for senior management in 2007.”
Ernst & Young's report also highlighted improvements in complaints handling in general, with 97% of providers responding to complaints with 48 hours and 89% issuing full complaints handling reports to their boards.
And 67% of respondents indicated they have a published policy for complaints handling which forms part of the overall TCF framework. A further 28% have established a set of complaint handling principles, if not a formal policy, which are included in staff training.
Southall concluded: “Many current complaint handling models were not designed to cope with the volume or complexity of today's complaints — or the reporting and management oversight which is required to meet FSA standards. Ernst & Young expects re-engineering of the complaints process to be a key customer management theme in 2007.”
