Over £800,000 in compensation was awarded to Islanders whose complaints were upheld by the Channel Islands Financial Ombudsman last year.
Complainants that went to the CIFO with an issue that fell within the body’s remit, who found they were unable to resolve the issue with their financial services provider internally, and had their complaints upheld, were awarded an average of £5,000.
They were some of the findings in the CIFO’s 2024 annual report. The CIFO is an independent statutory body that “adjudicates and resolves” consumer complaints against local financial services providers in Jersey and Guernsey.
Express shares the key takeaways…
On the surface
The CIFO received 577 complaints relating to 144 financial services providers in 2024.
Just under two-thirds (364) of complaints fell into the CIFO’s remit, so became cases that were opened for review.
A total of 340 cases were closed, a similar figure to 2023. Of those, 45% were upheld or upheld in part, 37% were not upheld, 8% were settled by the financial services provider, 5% were withdrawn, and another 5% were out of mandate.
Crucially, 54% of cases were resolved without the need for a formal decision from the ombudsman. “Wherever possible, we try to resolve cases without going to the final report stage,” said Antony Townsend, Chair of the CIFO.
Sector breakdown
Banks were the most complained about sector, having been involved in half of cases (183) in 2024.
This was based on 155 Jersey cases, compared to 28 in Guernsey.
A “particularly striking feature” of 2024, Mr Townsend said, was the increase in complaints about banks itself, because it looked like there had been a “tip away” from those types of cases in previous years.
Insurance was the second most complained-about sector with 130 cases across the islands. Almost all (125) of those cases were Guernsey-based, making insurance the top complained-about sector in the island.
The pension and non-bank money services/credit sectors had 19 cases each, and there were 13 cases relating to the investment sector.
Pain points
The high number of cases for banks, Mr Townsend said, was driven in part by instances of fraud, which demonstrated the “increased sophistication” of fraudsters. Sixty-five cases in 2024 involved fraud.
Poor administration or delays were also noted as issues within banking and across sectors (120 cases).
“It is a third of the cases we have to deal with, and I think that is quite a stark reminder of how administrative issues, rather than grander policy matters, are very often at the heart of consumer complaints,” said the CIFO Chair.
“That’s why it’s so important that financial services providers make sure their administration, both of their products and complaints, is improved.”
New year, more complaints
Complaint volumes rose by 2.6% and complaints that turned into ombudsman considerations increased by 8% from the previous year.
Mr Townsend said these figures demonstrated one of the key challenges the CIFO is experiencing – a growing caseload year-on-year.
“One of the reasons we have backlogs is because some financial services providers are very slow in responding to our requests for documents,” he explained.
“Another factor is that we are experiencing an increase in data subject access requests from complainants, and that can slow down the processing of complaints.”
DSARs were a “difficult area” for the CIFO, Mr Townsend admitted, because the team wanted to ensure that dealing with these requests didn’t “undermine” the “safeguards that are built into the CIFO’s own legislation”.
“They are extremely time-critical but also take up a lot of time from the staff,” he added. “We’ve been liaising with Jersey’s Office of the Information Commissioner, the Guernsey Office of the Data Protection Authority and other stakeholders to work out the best means of approaching this.”
Mr Townsend also noted that plans to bring occupational pensions into the CIFO remit had “currently stalled”, so the organisation was “waiting and watching” for updates on the matter.
