Our stupidly dumbo Prime Minister fails to understand you have the ROYAL COMMISSION FIRST. Then, if you are sensible, you create a Government controlled Federal Consumer Protection Bureau, to enable consumers to hold the Government to Account. The Prof. Ian Ramsay Report will be pure farce, influenced by the dumbo's at ASIC.

CONSUMER COMPLAINTS mainly against the Major banks have been mishandled by the corrupt EDR for two decades. Now, CIO calls for ROYAL COMMISSION INTO THE BANKS!!!!

BFCSA agrees the EDR system is hopelessly flawed and needs to be demolished.  BFCSA Members have experienced the disastrous CIO system and with NO satisfaction at all:pure bias to CIO Members.  FOS complaints have the Ombudsman taking no notice of  the lead of the courts and are utterly monstrously, biased to Major Banks.  OUR BFCSA SUBMISSION WAS NEVER PUBLISHED ON THE SCO-MO TREASURY WEBSITE, yet I took part in the discussions. I lobbied for the demolition of the EDR system.  Now we have to fight for a proper FEDERAL CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU

We have won round one!!!  Now the real battle begins.

Outcry over new financial complaints authority

Australian Financial Review May 23 2017 4:38 PM

James Eyers

 Six industry associations, representing four out of every five financial services firms, have jointly condemned the federal government's plan to create the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, warning it won't be trusted by smaller players who are angry they weren't properly heard during the consultation process and don't want to subsidise a scheme that will be designed to accommodate the big banks.

The federal budget outlined a "one-stop shop" for consumer complaints via the merger of three existing external dispute resolution schemes, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), the Credit and Investments Ombudsman (CIO) and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT). This followed a government-appointed review, led by Melbourne University professor Ian Ramsay, which the the industry associations say paid too much attention to views presented by consumer advocates and failed to recognise that a single, monopoly scheme may not be able to deliver fast and effective resolution of disputes for the small end of town.

The six industry associations – Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia (MFAA), Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA), Australian Collectors & Debt Buyers Association (ACDBA), Association of Securities and Derivatives Advisers of Australia (ASDAA), Association of Independently Owned Financial Professionals (AIOFP), and Australian Timeshare and Holiday Ownership Council (ATHOC) – said on Tuesday that they were "extremely concerned" with the creation of a "one-stop shop" and called on the government to abandon its plans to establish the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

"The major banks, invariably the largest generators of complaints, also benefit from a single scheme because the scheme will tailor its processes to deal with their large volume of complaints, at the expense of smaller financial firms," said Andy Semple, chairman of ASDAA.

The groups warn external dispute resolution (EDR) requires parties to agree to mutually acceptable and fair outcomes and this can be achieved only if the parties have trust in the scheme's processes.

The associations have criticised the consultation for being truncated and say the Australian Financial Complaints Authority will have limited powers and accountability because it is proposed that it will be a public company limited by guarantee rather than a statutory body.

They are also worried that the costs of the one-stop shop will now be subsidised by the 23,000-plus smaller financial services firms, most of which use CIO, which has special expertise and procedures to deal with their matters.

It is understood many small firms fear professional indemnity policy premiums will also rise given the one-stop shop will deal with larger disputes than CIO dealt with.

After the budget, Credit and Investments Ombudsman Raj Venga described the Ramsay review as a "wasted opportunity" and "a complete whitewash and a politically expedient solution that fixes nothing". He said the Australian Financial Complaints Authority won't have proper powers to impose penalties or bind third parties to its decisions.

"AFCA will not be equipped to weed out poor corporate culture, call out moral obloquy or fix embedded organisational cultures," Mr Venga said. "Only a royal commission can do this."