The State Duma approved the law on a unified approach to handling customer complaints for financial institutions

The State Duma adopted in the second and third reading lawregulating clients’ appeals to organizations in the financial market. According to the document, the answer to them must be provided within 15 days from the date of their registration. The current response time for complaints is 30 days.

The document establishes that from July 1, 2024, a uniform approach to the consideration of applications related to the activities of organizations supervised by the Bank of Russia will apply. Among them are credit, insurance, microfinance, clearing organizations, as well as professional participants in the securities market, credit history bureaus, credit rating agencies, exchanges, operators of financial platforms and information systems in which digital financial assets are issued.

Thus, if the law is signed by the president, these organizations will be required to respond to customer requests within 15 working days from the date of their registration, and if necessary, request additional documents and materials, to extend this period, but not more than 10 days. The law applies both to applications received by these organizations directly and through the Bank of Russia.

For 2022 Bank of Russia received 368,000 complaints from financial consumers and investors. Of these, 72% of appeals were sent in the first half of the year. The key reason for the growth was complaints related to sanctions restrictions. 27.6 thousand complaints against credit institutions received by the Bank of Russia concerned withdrawals and transfers of foreign currency, restructurings and credit holidays.