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Bank of Russia: Russians’ complaints against banks decreased in numbers over 6 months
In the first half of 2021, the Bank of Russia received over 125 thousand complaints from consumers of financial services, which is 15.6% less year-on-year.
According to the central bank, this is mainly resulted from a decrease by almost a third in the number of complaints against banks (to 74.4 thousand), which can be explained by a decrease in the loan restructuring volumes as compared to the first half of 2020. An important role therein was played by the regulator's explanations given to borrowers and its recommendations to lenders.
A key subject of complaints against microfinance organizations is collection of overdue debts, with the number of complaints keeping to decrease (by 10.6%), driven by measures of behavioral supervision in relation to violators.
However, the total number of complaints against microfinance firms increased by 23.3% to reach15.2 thousand, because of violations of consumer rights by an informal group of microfinance organizations.
The Bank of Russia notes that the number of complaints in regard to fraudulent activities has grown by 2.4 times to reach 5.1 thousand. Trying to obtain bank card details, fraudsters make telephone call and send letters with links to phishing sites to the citizens.
Since April, the number of complaints about misseling (the sale of one financial product under the guise of another) has been decreasing. This was prompted by the recommendations of the Bank of Russia regarding limiting the sales of insurance products with an investment component to clients who do not have special financial knowledge. In general, the half-year totals show a growth of this indicator by 37.8% (1.7 thousand complaints in total) compared to the same period last year.