The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said its ability to resolve banking issues (including failed transfers) is constitutionally limited.
The FCCPC’s CEO, Babatunde Irukera, stated this during an interview with Arise News on Thursday.
He, however, added the commission does work with banks by getting them to acknowledge what issues they may have with customers.
Complaints about banks: Irukera disclosed that issues in the banking sector used to make up most of the complaints it receive until a recent law change all that. He said:
- “The financial services sector is tricky. FCCPC before addressed complaints from the banking sector and it was the largest volume of complaints we received until it was surpassed recently by the electric power sector.
- “Even up till now, it is still the second largest, however in 2020 a new law came that excluded FCCPC Act from the banking industry. Meaning the FCCPC oversight with resolving the banking sector became limited.”
CBN’s role: He noted that the statutory platform for resolving banking issues with customers is now the CBN’s role, however its channel for complaints in the sector is still open.
- “Essentially, the real statutory platform for resolving banking complaints I now the Central bank, exclusively. However, because banking makes the second-largest complaints we receive, the FCCPC will continue its work with the banking sector, based on look and understanding that withdrawing that channel would be chaotic.”
Reduced Policy role: He added the FCCPC has reduced visibility towards policy implementations of issues between customers and banks, but still works in whatever capacity given.
- “We are struggling with having the tools to deal with the sector as we used to. As a result of this, we don’t have the visibility we had to contribute execution of policy that we fully capture what we know based on experience dealing with banking customers
- “We continue to resolve complaints on a daily basis, but the limit of what we can do are based on limitations of statutory instruments is at least get the banks to address what the issue is.”
