by Paul McBeth
A number of banking consumers are concerned about what they see as excessive fees and charges, they're poorly informed about how to make a complaint and they feel unfairly penalised by banks.
Those were some of the conclusions drawn by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Hon. Phillida Bunkle, after providing a month-long phone hotline for banking consumers. The Ministry trialled its free Bankline service to give people advice on resolving banking problems and to get a better idea of people's concerns.
A large number of complaints related to bank fees and charges, with Ms Bunkle saying that callers perceived a general decline in service in return for higher fees.
"We also got a sense through Bankline that people are not well informed about their bank's complaints procedures or about the Banking Ombudsman."
Banking Ombudsman Liz Brown said a number of callers were referred to her office during the trial and said the Ministry's conclusions that people were poorly informed was "a perennial problem". Banks which take part in the Ombudsman's Scheme are required to have information about complaints procedures on display in branches, but she said that wasn't much help for people who mainly dealt with their bank by telephone.
"Banks that are members of the Ombudsman's Scheme have very robust complaints procedures," she said. "The issue is getting frontline staff to recognise that someone is actually putting in a complaint and that anybody who is expressing any sort of dissatisfaction with their service is a potential complainant."
Brown said she was encouraging banks to put more information about complaints procedures on their web-sites.