Bank complaints have dropped dramatically

Complaints to the Banking Ombudsman in the first five months of this year are down 20 per cent from the equivalent period last year.

Banking Ombudsman, Liz Brown, has confirmed a “massive decline” of 38 per cent in investigations commenced.

Ms Brown considers that the following factors have contributed to the decline in complaints and investigations:

• generally favourable economic conditions, including full employment and rising property prices;
  
  
• a period of stability in the banking industry;
  
  
• a “settling down” of operational and organisational changes of the past five or six years;
  
  
• an increased awareness of:
  
  
  • the differing needs of individual customers;
    
    
• the importance of personal contact; and
  
  
• the importance of a non-adversarial, non-judgmental approach to customers with problems.
  
  

Ms Brown also said that “those banks that have restructured and put more resource into their internal complaints process are those that have contributed most to the reduction in cases that require investigation…”.

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