CBN deploys consumer complaint management system, gives guidelines to banks

Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has announced the deployment of its Consumer Complaint Management System which is also known as CCMS.

According to a circular dated December 21st but published today December 28th, the CBN said the automated system will help ease complaint management and ultimately boost Nigerians’ confidence in the banking sector.

The statement also disclosed that the move is part of the apex bank’s job to ensure that the banking and finance sector is stable and conducive for all.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria CBN), in furtherance of its mandate to promote stable financial system, embarked on the development of a Consumer Complaint Management System (CCMS), an automated system aimed at easing complaints management to engender public confidence in the financial system.”

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In view of this development, the CBN has made it compulsory for banks and other financial institutions to abide by three important guidelines which are-

• To assign a tracking to every complaint they receive from their respective customers.
• To acknowledge receipt of every complaint through an emailed response, which will also include the tracking number that has been assigned,
• To commence the uploading of all complaints on the CCMS.

The CBN also advised banks and other financial services operators to ensure that they always adhere to these stipulations starting from the given date. Failure to do this will attract sanctions in line with the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA), Cap B3, LFN 2004.

#CBN informs financial institutions of the Deployment of the Consumer Complaints Management System (CCMS) – an automated system aimed at easing complaints management to engender public confidence in the financial systemhttps://t.co/bG4YwroqJH

— Central Bank of Nigeria (@cenbank) December 28, 2018

Customer complaints are regular occurrences in the Nigerian banking sector. Just last month, the CBN disclosed that it received more than a thousand complaints from dissatisfied bank customers during the first quarter of 2018 alone.

While this may not be much, the issue serious problem lies in the fact that these complaints are seldom treated with the urgency it deserves.

To this end, the Central Bank of Nigeria has always sought to devise different new means towards resolving the problem, including mandating banks to resolve customers’ complaints within a two-week period.

It is expected that the deployment of the CCMS will help facilitate this effort to make the banking sector a lot more conducive for all.