As part of efforts to ensure speedy resolution of customer complaints, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed the nation’s Banks and Other Financial Institutions (BOFIs) to assign tracking number to every customer complaint they receive with effect from January 2, 2019.
The move, the apex bank said in a circular referenced: CPD/DIR/GEN/CIR/01/001, dated December 21, but published on Friday, December 28, 2018, is in line the need to develop a Customer Complaints Management System (CCMS).
In the circular signed by Kofo Salam-Alada, Director of the CBN’s Consumer Protection Department (CPD), the CCMS, which is an automated system aimed at easing complaints managements, while furthering promotion of a stable financial system to engender public confidence in the financial system.
As part of the CCMS, banks and other financial institutions, must after issuing the tracking number, follow up by issuing “an acknowledgement, which shall contain the assigned Tracking Number to the customer.”
Each bank shall follow up by commencing upload of complaints to the CCMS on a daily basis.
Also, the CBN enjoined BOFIs “to always comply with the timelines stipulated in the CCMS for resolution of the various categories of complaints.”
The circular warned that non-compliance “shall attract sanctions in line with the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA), Cap B3, LFN 2004.”