Ombudsmann-Tätigkeitsbericht 2014 Englisch

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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
ankenverband Ombudsman Scheme Rules, but, on the other hand, focused on acknowledging complaints as quickly as possible to let consumers know that their claim had been registered. In addition, the association posted helpful information on its website and provided a telephone hotline. To deal with the flood of complaints, it also recruited extra manpower to support in-house staff from all departments, set up an open-plan processing centre in its conference area and adapted its IT system accordingly – all within the space of a few days. In this way, the association managed to acknowledge receipt of all complaints filed in 2014 by the end of February 2015. The next step in the processing procedure was to forward complaints to member banks, who had already been contacted directly by borrowers in many cases. Regardless of the huge number of complaints, the Ombudsman Scheme and the association’s member banks are endeavouring to meet legitimate customer claims as quickly as possible. It is likely that a large proportion of complaints may be settled prior to an ombudsman decision by banks providing redress where a claim is justified. At the time the present report went to print, this applied to around 77% of cases. The remaining complaints will, of course, also be settled as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, fully processing the wave of complaints will take more time, particularly as it has continued to roll in 2015, albeit much less strongly. Complaints relating to consumer loan processing fees at any rate completely dominated the Ombudsman Scheme’s activity in 2014. The following chart, containing a breakdown of complaints by business area, makes this quite clear: Breakdown of complaints by business area: 2014 102,770 104,163 Total number of complaints: 108,500 Total number of area-related complaints Consumer loan processing fees 2,712 1,203 146 240 8 28 Lending business Securities business Payments business Basic account Savings business Guarantees/ third-party security Miscellaneous Source: Association of German Banks; as at 31 August 2015. Tätigkeitsbericht 2014 95
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Ombudsmann-Tätigkeitsbericht 2014 Englisch

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