The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is giving firms longer to resolve complaints informally to improve the chance of solving the problem in the first instance rather than trying and sometimes failing to meet the current one-day target.
This has been replaced with a three-day target which the FCA believes will reduce the amount of complaints which consumers feel they have to esculate.
If a complaint is resolved during this three-day period firms will be required to send their customers a simpler template message. This will inform the complainant of their right to take their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Christopher Woolard, director of strategy and competition at the FCA, said: “Our rules will help deliver the quicker, easier and fairer resolution to complaints that consumers want. Getting this right is also vital for firms. A properly resolved complaint can keep a customer happy, and protect the firm’s reputation. But, more than that, effective complaints handling systems can act as an early warning system for firms.”
Firms will be required to report all complaints to the FCA, which will publish the data and provide additional context to allow consumers to better compare firms.
Currently, firms are only required to report complaints to the FCA that take longer than a day to resolve.
