Banks, MFIs and other financial institutions in Russia will be required to respond to letters and complaints from customers within 15 days. As Izvestia was told in the Central Bank, the corresponding draft law will be prepared by the spring of 2021. It is necessary to eliminate the legislative gap, the press service of the regulator explained.
Now the procedure and terms for consideration by credit and other organizations of complaints from consumers are not clearly spelled out in the legislation. For example, 59-FZ (On the procedure for considering appeals of citizens of the Russian Federation) does not provide for them with an obligation to respond to letters from individuals and applies only to government agencies. There are no clauses in the consumer protection law regarding the activities of financial institutions. The Law on Banks and Banking Activities also does not establish the procedure and terms for considering citizens’ applications.
It is noted that the proposed approach will allow citizens to directly interact with financial market players, and promptly solve their problems. According to the new rules, it will be necessary to respond to the consumer’s letter within 15 days, in exceptional cases it is possible to extend this period to 30 days. Moreover, the answer should be essentially the problem with which the client applied, and not a simple reply, warn the Central Bank.
According to the Bank of Russia estimates, more than 50% of citizens’ complaints coming to its specialists can be settled by banks and other financial institutions on their own. At the same time, the regulator will control the quality of interaction within the framework of proactive inspections and repeated complaints from citizens.
More details in the exclusive material of Izvestia:
Compulsion to speak: banks will be obliged to respond to complaints from citizens
