Consumer-Driven Banking Act — C-36.78 115
Requirements 115 The external complaints body must (a) maintain a reputation for being operated in a manner that is consistent with the standards of good character and integrity; (b) make its services available across Canada in both official languages and offer those services free of charge to persons who make complaints; (c) establish policies, procedures and terms of reference that are satisfactory to the Bank with respect to, among other things, dealing with complaints and consulting, at least once a year, its member participating entities and consumers to allow them to raise concerns about the external complaints body; (d) establish the manner of calculating, to the satisfaction of the Bank, the fees it charges to each of its member participating entities for its services; (e) make information available to consumers about their rights and responsibilities in relation to the external complaints handling regime, respond to their inquiries and requests for information and offer them assistance in making complaints; (f) inform the parties to a complaint about the external complaints body’s terms of reference and procedures for dealing with complaints and, on request, provide the parties with any additional information and assistance to enable them to understand the requirements of those terms of reference and procedures; (g) deal with complaints in a manner that affects only the parties to the complaints; (h) inform the Bank in writing within 30 days after the day on which the external complaints body determines that a complaint raises a potential systemic issue; (i) if it determines that all or part of a complaint is not within its terms of reference, provide the person who made the complaint with written reasons for that determination and the name of any entity to which the person may make a complaint, within 30 days after the day on which it receives the complaint; (j) obtain confirmation from the member participating entity to which each complaint relates regarding whether the period set out in section 106 has ended, unless the person who made the complaint has provided the external complaints body with the written acknowledgment referred to in paragraph 105 (4)(a); (k) impartially deal with complaints referred to in paragraph 105 (1)(a) that have not been resolved by its member participating entities to the satisfaction of the persons who made the complaints or that have not been dealt with within the period set out in section 106 ; (l) no later than 120 days after the day on which it has all of the information that it requires to deal with a complaint, make a final written recommendation to the parties; (m) immediately inform the Bank, in writing, of cases in which a member participating entity does not comply with a final recommendation; (n) within 90 days after making a final recommendation, make available on its website free of charge a summary of the final recommendation that includes (i) a description of the nature of the complaint that is the subject of the final recommendation, (ii) the name of the member participating entity that received the complaint, (iii) a description of any compensation provided to the person who made the complaint or to the consumer referred to in paragraph 108 (d), (iv) the reasons for the final recommendation, and (v) any other information that is provided for in the regulations; (o) within 60 days after the end of each quarter, submit to the Bank, in a form satisfactory to the Bank, (i) in relation to all investigations completed during the quarter, a copy of the record of the complaint, and (ii) any other information that is provided for in the regulations; (p) within 60 days after the end of each financial year, meet with the Bank to discuss, among other things, complaints, operations and market trends and issues respecting consumer-driven banking that have the potential to impact consumers; (q) within 135 days after the end of each financial year, file with the Bank a written report