The Federal Government has proposed a new regime for the
handling of complaints by customers of banks. While banks are
already required to have a consumer complaints procedure in place
and to be a member of an external complaints body where unresolved
complaints can be referred, the current system has not been
satisfactory to many of the banks or consumers.
The Current Consumer Complaints System
While the vast majority of consumer complaints against banks are
settled based on the internal procedures of each bank, any complain
that cannot be so settled has, in the past, been referred to the
federally appointed Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments
("OBSI"). On the bank side, two of Canada's banks
made the decision to no longer use the services of OBSI and
instead, hired their own dispute resolution service. On the
consumer side, the complaint was that there was uncertainty as to
the manner in which a complaint would be handled if the internal
process failed.
