Dispute resolution regime leaves unfinished business
A further, if discursive, issues paper from the review of the financial system external dispute resolution framework lays emphasis on two hot topics but overlooks one bothering some financial firms.The first is a "compensation scheme of last resort" and the second "providing access to redress for past disputes."The Australian government last month endorsed the final report of the Ian Ramsay-led review into dispute resolution and complaints.The proposed Australian Financial Complaints Authority is one centrepiece of the broader package of banking measures bundled into this year's budget.The Financial Ombudsman Service (which handles most matters) and the Credit and Investments Ombudsman and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal are to be rolled up into a new industry scheme, expected to be a company limited by guarantee.The Ramsay panel's Supplementary Issues Paper airs 51 questions as a coda to its text, styled to avoid giving weight or preference to any topic or view.This catalogue includes a number of references to "cost and benefits", with costs a priority controversy for many stakeholders.Six industry associations covering hundreds of firms aligned with the Credit and Investments Ombudsman scheme last week called on the government "to abandon its plans to establish a single monopoly EDR scheme."Three of these are the Mortgage and Finance Association of Australia, the Customer Owned Banking Association and the Australian Collectors and Debt Buyers Association. This trio represents a minority of the CIO's 23,000 members, but the vast majority of the most well-known financial sector names.The CIO's backers are building their case for a version of the status quo around competition and efficiency themes, drawing on differences in the business models of CIO and the Financial Ombudsman Service, especially their sources of revenues.The Ramsay panel is to report to the Government on the matters covered by its amended Terms of Reference in the second half of 2017.The panel said it "encourages stakeholders interested in the matters raised in this Supplementary Issues Paper to make a submission by 28 June 2017."