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Professional negligence combated by new rules

Published on 1 Feb 2010 under category: legal

Companies will now be required by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to publish reports on their complaints handling procedure in a bid to drive up standards across the financial services industry.

According to the new rules, firms that receive more than 500 complaints in a six-month period are obligated to disclose details of their procedures twice a year.

The FSA has asked companies to reveal how many complaints they have addressed to completion, the percentage of those complaints closed within eight weeks and the number of complaints that are upheld.

The collected data will be published in the form of a publicly available list every year.

Sheila Nicoll, the FSA's director of conduct policy, said: "We are committed to greater transparency where this will help consumers. For the first time, people will be able to see how many complaints particular firms receive and how they handle them.

"Our more intensive approach to supervision places a greater focus on assessing how firms deal with their customers- and how firms handle complaints is a key part of this."

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