2013-10-17
Consumers increasingly tend to settle disputes arising with commercial banks by applying for a solution to an impartial arbitrator — the central bank of the country. As consumer disputes with banks are becoming increasingly abundant, the number of such cases in the third quarter for the first time exceeded that of disputes with insurers.
“A tendency has been observed that consumers, once in a dispute with commercial banks, increasingly tend to protect their rights by applying to the central bank. Whereas the number of disputes with insurers, which had been the greatest to date, decreased marginally in the last quarter,” says Darius Andriukaitis, Head of the Consumer Protection and Education Division of the Supervision Service of the Bank of Lithuania.
The central bank had 168 applications from consumers in the third quarter, regarding disputes with financial market participants (157 in the respective period a year ago). Regarding commercial banks, last year it was applied 82 times, insurance undertakings — 76 times, other financial market participants — 10 times. The number of disputes with banks increased by 44 per cent while decreasing by 8 per cent with insurers.
Disputes with banks arise most often over loans for house purchase — in the third quarter they accounted for 40 per cent of all disputes with banks. The share of disputes over deposits was 28 per cent. There were also cases of disagreement over payment cards, accounts, securities, consumer credits. In the disputes with other financial market participants, the absolute majority were those with consumer credit lenders — 75 per cent.
As regards insurers, consumers disputed mainly over vehicles — the disputes over motor third party liability insurance and CASCO insurance accounted for 23 per cent of the total disputes in this sector respectively. Property insurance was the object of disputes with insurers in 21 per cent of cases.
With the Bank of Lithuania having settled 121 disputes in the third quarter, financial institutions were proposed to settle 47 disputes peacefully, 9 — by satisfying the consumer’s claims fully or in part, 12 disputes ended up in a reached agreement or satisfaction of the consumer’s claim by the market participant, while in 26 cases consumer claims were dismissed. This year, there was a decline in cases when disputes were not settled because of having not followed the requirements for their application: there were 27 such cases in the third quarter (from 33 a year ago).
The solutions of the Bank of Lithuania are more like recommendations. Consumers have the right to bring the same dispute to court. On the other hand, nearly all disputes are settled in the manner proposed by the Bank of Lithuania. In the third quarter only two cases when financial market participants did not fulfil the Bank of Lithuania’s solution were recorded.