ArmInfo. Armenian office of Finance Ombudsman pretty effectively resolves disputes between natural persons and financial organizations. Such an opinion was expressed by the qualified Italian mediator Corrado Mora on May 25, answering a question from ArmInfo, who arrived in Yerevan on May 25-26 at the annual 7th conference on "Strengthening public confidence to Finance Ombudsman Institute and increasing the role of financial intermediation."
"It is not the first year we cooperate with Armenian partners. I can say that it is us, who have something to take from Armenian Finance Ombudsman in resolution of disputes between natural persons and financial organizations," he added.
According to him, Armenia formed optimal, well organized atmosphere, where banks, insurance companies, Central Bank and Finance Ombudsman can quickly respond to the problems and find solutions. "You have what we do not have," Mora stressed. Particularly, he informed that Italian policy mostly faces complaints in insurance from medical mistakes and in bank sector on high interest rates.
For her part, the head of the Armenian office of financial ombudsman Piruz Sargsyan noted that in Armenia traditionally leadership in the number of complaints continues to be held by the insurance sector, with an average annual growth of 20%. Answering the question of ArmInfo, Sargsyan stated that from January to May 21 2017, Finance Ombudsman office received 723 written claims. 357 of them got their decisions, and in 86.6% of cases the decisions were made in favor of the client. Approximately 45 million AMD were reimbursed to the applicants.
"The main part of the complaints refer to Third Party Liability Insurance, which in their turn are divided into 3 groups. In particular, these claims are about the amount of compensation from the damage inflicted, cases of non-payment by insurance companies of reimbursements, and differences of parties to the conflict over the measure of responsibility and the subject of its assignment, "she added. On the second place, according to the Fin Ombudsman, are complaints related to the banking sector, in particular fraud with bank cards, legal relations in the framework of consumer loans, deposits, etc.
According to the statistics, Sargsyan noted that the recognition and trust of the public to the institution of the financial mediator has significantly increased. In this regard, she noted that about 6,000 complaints are registered annually, 1600 of which are in written form . "On average, over 70% of submitted claims can be resolved annually in favor of the applicants," she said, adding that since the establishment of the Finance Ombudsman Institute in Armenia from January 24, 2009 to May 21 2017 the office received 17,414 claims against financial organizations, and the total volume of compensations paid to individuals exceeded 1 billion drams.
To note, Finance Ombudsman services, active in Armenia from the beginning of 2009 are free, and financial organizations themselves pay for its work. Armenian Finance Ombudsman experience, gained during 8 years functioning of this institute in the country, is announced the best in CIS by international partners.