When a complaint is received, the ombudsman refers it to the bank\u2019s internal complaints process to give them an opportunity to resolve the matter directly with the customer.<\/p>\n
A dispute is a complaint that has not been resolved to the customer\u2019s satisfaction by the bank and has been escalated for investigation.<\/p>\n
The scheme\u2019s Early Resolution Service (ERS) resolved about 91% of complaints before they needed a formal investigation. <\/p>\n
According to the report, the ombudsman received 973 complaints about ASB, representing 18.8% of total cases. Of these, 54 were investigated as disputes.<\/p>\n
The country\u2019s largest bank, ANZ, received 947 complaints or 18.3% of the ombudsman\u2019s cases, leading to 55 disputes.<\/p>\n
Among the remaining big five banks, Kiwibank received 629 complaints which led to 52 disputes, Westpac (626 complaints; 39 disputes) and BNZ (533 complaints; 42 disputes).<\/p>\n
Heartland Bank received the most complaints among \u201cmedium\u201d sized banks with 270 or 5.20% of cases, which resulted in 24 disputes. <\/p>\n
Taranaki Savings Bank (TSB) received 132 complaints, resulting in four disputes.<\/p>\n
The increase in complaints applied to all types of disputes, but particularly to lending disputes, which rose 59% compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n
Banking Ombudsman Nicola Sladden attributed the rise in disputes to the financial pressures faced by many New Zealanders and an increase in those using artificial intelligence (AI) for help.<\/p>\n
The report found financial hardship was a factor in a fifth of disputes.<\/p>\n
\u201cCustomers are also increasingly using AI tools to understand their rights and prepare their complaints,\u201d Sladden said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, these tools are giving users the confidence to pursue their complaints as far as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The scheme resolved disputes on average in 49 working days, 14 fewer than the year before.<\/p>\n
Sladden said the other big trend of the year was the drop in fraud and scam complaints, down 40% compared with the previous year.<\/p>\n
She said this was due to the success of efforts by banks and government agencies to raise awareness about how to avoid being duped by scammers. <\/p>\n
\u201cScammers are nothing if not determined and adaptable,\u201d Sladden said.<\/p>\n
Michael Heron, Banking Ombudsman Scheme chair, said the scheme continued to be a highly responsive and respected dispute resolution service committed to both preventing and resolving banking problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemand for our services has remained high throughout the year, reflecting the financial pressures facing consumers and the increasing complexity of many complaints,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a complaint is received, the ombudsman refers it to the bank\u2019s internal complaints process to give them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1443,916,1396,138,380,6846,4729,78,17706,111,139,4061,69,1118,12792,3170,19554,80],"class_list":["post-600521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-about","tag-banking","tag-banks","tag-business","tag-decade","tag-disputes","tag-highest","tag-in","tag-investigates","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-number","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-ombudsman","tag-scheme","tag-taken","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}