From 30 June, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is introducing new rules for handling informal complaints. This could affect the way you work. There are also some changes to the FCA reporting rules; these take effect on 1 July. Here, we provide a simple guide to these new rules:
What is the FCA changing about the way informal complaints are handled?
The FCA has extended the timeframe for handling informal complaints. Instead of being required to resolve the complaint by close of play on the next business day following receipt, you will now have until close of play on the third day following receipt to accept or reject the customer's dispute.
The introduction of Summary Resolution Communication
After resolving an informal complaint by close of play on the third business day following receipt, you will need to send the customer a 'summary resolution communication'. This will tell the customer how they can escalate their complaint internally and include details of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Where a complaint cannot be resolved informally, within the new timescale, your standard escalation procedures should still apply.
Changes to reporting requirements
The FCA has also made some significant changes to their reporting requirements, which includes:
- The need to include informal complaints data
- A breakdown of complaints by product
- A sub-set of compalint categories within the existing FCA categories
RSA's responsibility
Unless RSA has specifically delegated its authority for complaints handling to you (including informal), RSA will continue to be responsible for the handling, logging and reporting of all complaints, about its regulated activity.
Where we identify a complaint that is a matter for you, as the intermediary, we shall pass this on immediately upon identification.
What you need to do
Unless RSA has specifically delegated its complaints handling authority to you (including informal), it will remain your responsibility to pass complaints relating to RSA's regulated activity, to RSA, immediately upon identification, in accordance with existing business procedures.
For complaints that fall within your responsibility, as intermediary, you should retain, log, handle and report them, in accordance with the FCA rules.
Contract changes
In most circumstances it won't be necessary to make changes to contracts. This is because the existing requirements and processes for passing complaints back to RSA already exist.
Delegated Complaint Handling
Where we have delegated our formal and/or informal complaints handling authority to you, we will be providing you with more detail about the changes and how this impacts upon your responsibilities.
Any required changes to the MI you provide, and any amendments to your Delegated Complaints Handling Agreement, will be discussed with you directly.
Questions or queries
If you have any questions, please raise them with your usual RSA contact.