Last week, ifa reported that a government-appointed panel had proposed the establishment of an independent assessor to conduct investigations into FOS’s handling of disputes.
Speaking to ifa, chief executive at Shartru Wealth Robert Coyte said, “The requirement that FOS be independently reviewed is welcome and long overdue.”
“Accountability is essential in any sphere of public service. FOS should be scrutinised on their decision making the same way the advisers they adjudicate on are. If they are not up to scratch, they should be removed from their positions,” he said.
Mr Coyte said he believes there are currently a range of problems with FOS.
“[FOS has] inappropriately-skilled case officers who don’t understand the advice processes and technicalities,” Mr Coyte said.
“FOS case managers have wide discretion as to the process and rules of evidence applied to individual complaints, [which] results in inconsistency and dissatisfaction from users.
“The FOS claims to enforce the law and use industry standards as the benchmark for advice. In my opinion, any substantial study of FOS cases shows this claim to be highly dubious.”
Other commenters on the ifa website also recently backed increased accountability for FOS.
One comment stated: “I totally agree that FOS needs an independent assessor. Better still, make FOS abide by evidence-based investigations.”
Another commenter said, because advice “is so complex now, and advice documents so long, it’s not possible for FOS to be across everything.”
In a recent response to the government-appointed panel’s recommendation, FOS said: “We welcome the interim report and support its proposals designed to strengthen current arrangements based on fairness, openness, simplicity and adaptability as core features of future arrangements for dispute resolution in the financial sector.”
Basically the working aussies are destroyed, whether they be the small businesspeople who do the small time brokering etc or they are the people who get services as consumers. We never see FOS acting against large banks, it is always a show!
Same story here but with CBA
Same story here as well with the CBA ….over 20 breaches of the corporations act and 5 acts of fraud and not one cent compensation provided to us the victim by the FOS, yet if was a IFA we dealt with I am sure the FOS would have no hesitation having that adviser pay the client for damages.
FOS has only Victims. There is not any accountability. FOS is beholden to only one institution; that is, the big four banks. Notice how the big four banks are under a cloud yet FOS goes after the back-yard brokers? FOS does not target the big banks and it is a disgrace.
FOS is paid by the banks and is corrupt according to the evidence I gave to the Senate committee on White Collar Crime. My experience with FOS was that they were devious, unjust and refused to investigate my complaint and just did what the ANZ Bank and NAB told them to do.
Paul, are you a member of the public or a financial planner? If the former, please provide some more info so we can all help to get your case sorted. If you’re a planner…What the…???
I’m also impressed if you’re a consumer who reads our industry “inside stuff” – good on you and be sure to give feedback on “us”, but I’d also guess you’d be appalled by some of what you read that’s written by many advisers/planners on these pages. Love to know more.