The Channel Islands Financial Ombudsman (CIFO) today (30 May 2017) published complaint numbers for the first quarter of 2017. Some highlights from the report are shown below, for full details of the complaints received and handled during the period January – March 2017, please see the report.

• https://www.ci-fo.org/news-publications/statistics/
• https://www.ci-fo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CIFO-Complaint-Statistics-for-Q1-2017-ending-31st-March.pdf

In the first quarter, January – March, 2017 CIFO received 313 complaints.

The mandate or remit of CIFO is set out by law, particularly the types of financial services that can be complained about, the type of complainant that may use the service and the time limits that apply. During this period, 28 new case files were opened – these are complaints that are within CIFO’s mandate.

Most related to the sectors of investments/funds, banking and insurance, with the top 5 products or services complained about being:

• Financial advice (29% of case files opened);
• Current accounts (18%);
• Mutual funds, unit trusts, collective investment schemes (11%);
• Payment protection insurance (7%);
• Home insurance (7%).

The top four issues raised by complainants related to:

• Mis-selling (46% of case files opened);
• Poor administration or delay (29%);
• Non-payment of claim (11%);
• Refusal of service (7%).

During January – March 2017, CIFO closed 266 complaints:

• 86% (230) could not be dealt with as they were outside the scope of CIFO’s mandate as set by law;
• 2% (4) were withdrawn by the complainant after coming to CIFO;
• 8% (22) were successfully mediated by case handlers;
• 4% (10) were determined by the Ombudsman.

Principal Ombudsman Douglas Melville said:

• “We are pleased to be publishing our first quarterly report on complaint numbers for 2017, as part of our firm commitment to transparency in the performance of CIFO’s important public interest mandate.
• These statistics give the headline information about our work and show a high volume of complaints received and closed in the first three months of 2017.
• The number rejected as outside the scope of CIFO’s mandate was largely due to a multiple complaints involving one financial services provider.
• “In other areas, we look forward to further discussions with stakeholders in response to our forthcoming discussion paper on the review of our funding and also on our annual report for 2016, which will be published in June.”

CIFO’s primary role is to resolve complaints about financial services provided in or from Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. Highlights from the latest report on complaint numbers are shown below, and more detail can be found in the full report on CIFO’s website www.ci-fo.org.