AMF encourages investment services providers to strengthen their procedures for handling client complaints

Handling client complaints is an important component of investor and saver protection, which is one of the six priority areas set by the AMF in its Impact 2027 strategy. In this field, institutions must comply with the organisational rules set out by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, and meet the requirements for handling complaints contained in the Consumer Code and European regulations.

As part of a series of short, thematic inspections (known as SPOT, which stands for Supervision of Operational and Thematic Practices), the AMF took stock of the procedures in place at five investment service providers between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2022. It also carried out checks on a sample of complaints for each of the service providers.

The AMF focused on:

• the definition adopted by the institutions to qualify something as a complaint;
• the organisation and management of complaints handling;
• the accessibility of information on how complaints are handled;
• the commitments made by the institutions  regarding response times and the fact that the system is free of charge;
• the information on appeal procedures;
• the control system and continuous improvement.

The AMF teams also looked at how client vulnerability was taken into account when handling complaints, and how this handling could detect a situation of vulnerability. They also examined the extent to which any malfunctions fed back through complaints had been taken into account to modify product governance. Under the regulations governing financial instrument markets, financial instrument distributors must define a target market and an appropriate distribution strategy to ensure that their products are marketed in a way that meets the needs and profiles of their clients. An analysis of client complaints must be taken into account in the periodic review of products and services.

In its summary, the AMF notes shortcomings in some service providers’ compliance with the applicable requirements in terms of complaint definition, leading them to over or underestimate the number of complaints reported to the AMF. It also points to weaknesses in clients being systematically informed when the time limit set for handling complaints (60 days) is likely to be exceeded. The avenues of appeal available to clients are not systematically indicated in the event of an unfavourable response from the institution. In addition, the risk-based approach has too often led to the issue of complaints being excluded from control plans. In this regard, the AMF reiterates the importance of institutions justifying the risk-based approach they have adopted. The inspections also showed that none of the institutions examined had included complaints in the annual review of their product governance procedure during the period under review.

At the same time, the document lists a number of good practices observed during the inspections, including:

• monitoring social media and considering this channel as a possible source for clients to make a complaint;
• having qualified staff and/or a duly identified department, accessible to the client, whose sole remit is to handle complaints, in order to improve the quality of this process;
• providing for the involvement of experts, depending on the issues raised in complaints, to assist the departments in charge of handling them;
• regularly training the staff of the departments in charge of handling complaints;
• when checks are carried out, these make it possible to ensure that complaints receive high-quality responses in order to avoid standard responses, and to provide the necessary explanations and, ultimately, client satisfaction.

About the AMF

The AMF is an independent public authority responsible for ensuring that savings invested in financial products are protected and that investors are provided with adequate information. The AMF also supervises the orderly operations of markets.Visit our website https://www.amf-france.org/en