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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) have jointly launched a consultation on guidelines for complaints handling in the securities and banking sectors.
Consumers in the EU can purchase, and firms can offer, financial services and products in the banking, investment and insurance sectors across the EU. In order to increase market confidence of all participants, the Joint Committee of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) is seeking to develop a harmonised approach to handling complaints. The three ESAs are doing so through guidelines that, once adopted, would apply equally across all 28 Member States and will be the same for all three sectors of financial services.
To that end, ESMA and the EBA have developed guidelines for the investment and banking sectors that build on the existing complaints-handling guidelines established by EIOPA for the insurance sector.
The objective is to provide EU consumers with a single set of complaints handling arrangements, irrespective of the type of product or service and of the geographical location of the firm in question. This will also allow firms to streamline and standardise their complaints handling arrangements and national regulators to supervise the same requirements across all sectors of financial services.
ESMA and the EBA expect to publish the final guidelines in Q1 2014. The deadline for the submission of comments is 7 February 2014.