Ombudsmann-Tätigkeitsbericht 2014 Englisch

8
c. Management of complaints
A Customer Complaints Office was set up at the
Association of German Banks as a gateway to the
Ombudsman Scheme. Any customer of a private
commercial bank can contact this office in writing if they
feel that they have been treated unfairly by their bank.
All they have to do is give a brief account of the facts of
the matter, enclosing copies of the required documents
(e.g. cash account or securities account statements).
Complaints in English and French submitted by
customers resident abroad are also processed; in this
case, however, the ombudsman proceedings can take
8.2 Special effect in 2014: Complaints
about inadmissible consumer loan
processing fees
In a total of four decisions, the Federal Court of Justice
departed in 2014 from its previous judgements on the
admissibility of consumer loan processing fees. On
13 May 2014, it issued two rulings on the validity of
loan fee clauses in banks’ general terms and conditions
of business, following these up with two rulings on
28 October 2014 on the question of when claims for
reimbursement of such fees become time-barred under
the statute of limitations.
longer, as translations may be required. A fully intended
consequence of the introduction of the Ombudsmen
Scheme is that most private commercial banks have
established schemes of their own to handle customer
complaints. These in-house complaint-settlement
schemes have been a success. A large number of
complaints do not need to be settled by an ombudsman.
In many cases, simply explaining banking procedures or
sometimes complex and abstract banking transactions
takes care of any disputes in advance.
The controversial decisions on time-barring had
an enormous impact on the Ombudsman Scheme.
Particularly because claims for reimbursement of fees
charged under some existing loan agreements had
to be filed by 31 December 2014 at the latest, large
numbers of consumers contacted the Ombudsman
Scheme shortly before the end of the year. On
29 December 2014 alone, the Customer Complaints
Office received over 29,000 complaints. By the end of
the year, fee-related complaints totalled 102,770.
The Association of German Banks responded to this
challenge by taking a number of emergency measures.
For example, it introduced a simplified processing
procedure which, on the one hand, complied with the
94 Tätigkeitsbericht 2014