31 may 2024, 17:18

FOS Activities Report for 2023 published

On 31 May 2024, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) published its Report on Activities for 2023.

The document is available at the following link:

https://finombudsman.ru/about/otchetyi-o-deyatelnosti/otchet-za-2023-god.html

According to the Chief Financial Ombudsman Yury Voronin, the Report has been prepared in accordance with the requirements set out in Article 13 of the Federal Law “On the Ombudsman for the Rights of Consumers of Financial Services”. The document contains generalised information on consumer appeals considered in 2023 by Financial Ombudsmen and the decisions made on them, indicating the name of financial institutions against which appeals were received. The Report also contains information on the implementation of the Financial Ombudsman’s decisions by financial institutions, on appealing against the decisions, and the results of such appeals.

The Report has turned out to be quite lengthy, which is accounted for by strengthening in 2023 of the Service’s interaction with the Bank of Russia, state authorities of all branches and levels, consumers of financial services, financial institutions, as the Chief Financial Ombudsman explained. For the convenience of the Report readers, a section has been added that briefly summarises the results of the Service’s work.

According to Yury Voronin, there was a decrease in the number of violations of the rights of consumers of financial services in 2023. “The number of appeals to the Financial Ombudsman in 2023 decreased by 12.4% compared to 2022, primarily due to a decrease in the number of appeals against insurance companies. In total, we received 134,213 appeals from consumers,” he added.

At that, there has been an increase in the share of complicated appeals, which, in particular, include (1) appeals for which unified approaches to consideration have not yet been established in judicial practice, (2) appeals where neighbouring legislation is applied, (3) appeals containing five or more claims in a single appeal, as well as combined claims (e.g., claims arising from different contracts but united by a single event), (4) appeals where consideration of a significant number of factual circumstances are required to be investigated, and (4) appeals where a large number of factual circumstances are to be investigated.

This state of affairs causes not only an increase in labour costs for preparation of decisions on such appeals (the more requirements, the more extensive the decision), but also an increase in the number of additional requests sent by the Financial Ombudsman (to clarify the factual circumstances), and, therefore, in the amount of information analysed when making a decision, and further complication of the methods of appeal consideration.

“The number of complicated appeals has increased by 15,000, from 14,000 in 2022 to 29,000 in 2023,” the Chief Financial Ombudsman informed.

Another key trend last year was the enhancement of legal protection for consumers of financial services. “Thus, from 2023 on, the Financial Ombudsman is empowered with new competences: to consider disputes on illegal transfers of pension savings of consumers of financial services, starting from 11 December 2023, as well as powers to consider disputes arising from long-term savings contracts, starting from 1 January 2025,” he added.

Yury Voronin also said that Financial Ombudsmen made more than 95.5 thousand decisions in 2023 for the amount of 2.7 billion rubles. Over the past year, the share of decisions on full or partial satisfaction of consumer claims was 30.3%.

The average period of appeal consideration and decision-making by Financial Ombudsmen, taking into account the period of suspension of the dispute consideration for independent expert examination of consumer appeals, had not changed compared to 2022 and amounted to 16 working days.

The Report also contains a section on income and expenditures of the fund for financing the Financial Ombudsman’s activities, as well as the section “Annual accounting (financial) statements of the Ombudsman for financial services consumers support Service (OFSC)”.

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