The Financial Ombudsman Service of the Russian Federation (FOS hereinafter) was created in 2018 to mediate consumer rights complaints and out-of-court disputes between consumers of financial services and financial organizations.[1] It was created under federal law on June 4, 2018 (No. 123-ФЗ “On the Ombudsman for the Rights of Consumers of Financial Services”)[2] to provide legal status of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the procedure for its activities, specific rules and regulation procedures as well as consideration of citizens’ complaints scheme and other legal relations.[3] It was designed to help resolve disputes between consumers and financial institutions providing clients[3] and considers claims against credit institutions, insurance organizations, microfinance institutions, credit consumer cooperatives, pawnshops and non-state pension funds[4] on a mandatory and voluntary basis[5]
The Financial Ombudsman Service structure
The Financial Ombudsman Service of the Russian Federation:[6] consists of[2]
- Chief Financial Ombudsman and ombudsmen for financial services;
- the Financial Ombudsman Service Council;
- the Ombudsman for financial services consumers support Service;
- the Financial Ombudsman Service Expert Council.
Main activities
The Financial Ombudsman Service of the Russian Federation performs out-of-court resolution of disputes between consumers of financial services and financial institutions that have provided them with a service:.[4] In accordance with the applicable law and regulations, the interaction with the Financial Ombudsman is currently mandatory for[5]
- insurance organizations that carry out activities in Compulsory Motor Liability insurance, Voluntary Third Party Liability insurance and insurance of land vehicles (except for railway)[7] – since June 1, 2019;
- all insurance organizations (except for organizations that carry out compulsory health insurance exclusively) – since November 28, 2019;
- all microfinance institutions – since January 1, 2020;
- credit institutions, pawnshops, credit consumer cooperatives and non-state pension funds – since January 1, 2021.
In 2019, the Financial Ombudsman Service accepted 47,655 complaints for consideration.:[8] 37,428 decisions were made, 10,227 complaints were in the process of consideration as at the end of 2019. Among the 37,428 made decisions 30,909 cases (82.6%) contain full or partial satisfaction of the applicants’ claims or on refusal to satisfy them (on the merits of the dispute) and 6,519 (17.4%) cases state the termination of consideration of the complaint. Overall, during the 2019 business year the total number of complaints received is 91,359 (around 609 applications on daily basis)[9] with the mean value of 210,614 rubles:[10] 70,267 complaints (77%) sent by consumers through the applicant's personal account on the Financial Ombudsman Service; and 21,092 complaints (23%) were delivered by hand or by the Russian Post[8]
References
External links
