In a speech to the Building Societies Association (BSA) today, Linda Woodall, the FCA’s director of mortgages and consumer lending, said: “something isn’t working in the way firms manage and investigate customers’ complaints”.
The announcement comes as the Financial Ombudsman Service revealed it had handled a record number of complaints – more than 327,000 – in the first half of the year.
Woodall said the regulator will use its new approach to place greater onus on senior persons to understand how their firm’s complaints handling process works.
The FCA is launching the review in two phases. The first, due to complete by the end of 2013, will examine how firms identify, record and report complaints. The second, starting in early 2014, will consider the way firms address the complaints and analyse the cause of the problem.
As part of this review, the regulator plans to demand more responsibility from senior employees in financial services firms for poor complaint handling. It will publish a report on its findings in the second quarter of 2014.
It was “100% in the industry’s interest” to ensure that when customers did complain, they had confidence their complaint would be recognised, investigated fairly in a timely manner and that redress would be paid where it was due, Wooddall added.
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