the financial supervision commission includes in its annual report a brief section on the number and main types of complaints regarding each sector under its supervision (insurance, securities and pensions). However no statistics are publicly available for other types of financial services. In general, statistical information and analysis of financial consumer complaints is scarce, disperse, not easily available and not aggregated. As a result, no government agency or non-government organization reviews complaints data to see what trends could be determined across the financial sector. Making the complaint statistics available to the public would allow such analysis—and potentially provide insights into what revision to legislation or institutions would be helpful in avoiding or at least limiting complaints in the future.

**Consumers in the EU new member states tend not to pursue complaints.** Looking at consumer complaints across all sectors (not just financial services), the October 2008 Eurobarometer survey of 27 member states found that consumers in the new member states tended not to pursue complaints. For example, in Bulgaria, 78 percent of consumers took no further action if a complaint was not satisfactorily resolved. However even across the EU, as many as half of all consumers give up even if there is no satisfactory resolution of the problem at hand.

**As a financial complaints office gains public credibility, it is likely that the number of complaints will increase.** The Financial Ombudsman Service in the UK handled above 31,000 complaints during its first full year of operation (2001) and the Financial Services Ombudsman in Ireland received around 2,600 complaints during its first year of activities (2005). Within three years, as the offices became well known and gained credibility as effective spokespersons for financial consumers, the number of complaints had risen more than two-fold—up to about 100,000 complaints in the UK and 6,000 in Ireland (although a large number of the complaints in the UK related to the ongoing resolution of cases of misselling of insurance policies sold to borrowers as repayment vehicles for residential mortgages). Financial institutions in the UK are required to alert consumers to the redress that is available through the complaints process. A similar increase in the number of complaints might be expected in developing countries.

**Dispute resolution systems vary across countries.** Among the nine countries in the Diagnostic Reviews, only three had some form of mediation or conciliation committees or arbitration court, which tried to help both parties amicably come to an agreement (see Table 7). Three countries had an arbiter, ombudsman or agency that covered only specific banking or insurance services—or even just payments services.

**Table 7: Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution Systems**

|**Country**|**Out-of-Court Dispute Resolution System**|
|---|---|
|Azerbaijan|None|
|Bulgaria|Conciliation Committees|
|Croatia|Mediation Centers|
|Czech Republic|Financial Arbiter (payment services only)|
|Latvia|Banking Association Ombudsman (payment services only)<br>Insurance Ombudsman (property and motor insurance only)<br>Arbitration Courts|
|Lithuania|Consumerprotection agency(payment services only)|
|Romania|None|
|Russia|Small Courts|
|Slovakia|Arbitration Court (banking sector)|

_Source_ : Diagnostic Reviews 29