FICS restructures dispute resolution procedures

By Ben Abbott

THE Financial Industry Complaints Service (FICS) is to implement a formal conciliation procedure for dispute resolution between its members and consumers following a successful pilot of the scheme.

FICS national relations manager Trevor Slater says the pilot began in November last year, and that FICS is now “ironing the last bugs out” for a wider implementation among members by March this year.

The process, called a conciliation conference, involves the consumer and member company coming together, usually via a telephone link-up, to try to generate a resolution with the assistance of a conciliation case manager.

“Most members will have a complaint that is suitable to this method as it deals with no one type of complaint.

“We hope we will soon be dealing with most complaints through conciliation methods,” he says.

The end of the pilot marks a concerted move away from panel determinations to resolve complaints, with two specialist conciliators hired by FICS in August last year.

Slater says the new process is a result of an independent review of FICS conducted early last year that found “there were some things it was doing well and others it wasn’t”, and which called for more conciliation.

Slater says before the formal procedure was developed, other forms of conciliation were used including document exchange, but these were limited in their approach.

He says to date the feedback from members and consumers, surveyed after their involvement, has been positive.