Investments, loans issues top complaints at banks for 2022 – BoG report
Customer issues regarding investments and loans were among the top five category of complaints recorded in banks for 2022.
The others included complaints on current accounts, digital and electronic-money services and products.
This is according to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Complaint Management Report 2022.
Out of the total 983 reports received, investment products and services, which comprised both government securities and those developed by regulated institutions, recorded the highest complaint of 369, approximately 39% of total complaints for 2022.
274 borrowers, representing 29%, also registered their dissatisfaction with loans secured from regulated institutions such as personal, business and mortgage loans.
Current account operators (Personal and Business) followed closely with 155 complaints, representing 16%. These included individual and business accounts.
33 consumers recorded their discontent with some digital products or services, representing 3% of 2022 complaints.
Electronic wallet holders lodged 25 complaints, which made up approximately 3% of complaints received during the year 2022.
Other products such as Forex, Cards, Savings Account, Bancassurance, Remittance and trade, altogether recorded 99 complaints, approximately 10% of 2022 complaints.
Resolution
The report said a total of 474 complaints were received from customers of Banks.
These complaints covered 21 out of the 23 Banks over the reporting period. That is, there was no complaint lodged against two of the banks.
Complaints related to foreign banks were 277 for the 14 Foreign Banks (approx. 20 per bank), while domestic banks were 197 for the seven local banks (approx. 28 per bank).
The resolution rate among Banks was 89 percent. The resolution rate provides a measure of cooperation between the Banks and the complaint resolution team in Bank of Ghana.
Breakdown
On investments, the complaint data suggested that, investment products and services witnessed delays with discounting, statement issuance, crediting matured investment or interest and roll overs on maturity.
Loans concerns that were raised on loan products / services were generally around change in loan tenure and interest rate without borrowers’ consent, delays in processing loan, releasing collateral, issuing loan statement, recovery approach and termination of loans.
For current account complaints, operators of current accounts with regulated institutions disputed certain charges that were debited to their accounts.
These included charges covering transfers (onshore and offshore), SMS alerts, E-levy, dud cheque, account maintenance fees and online transactions.
On the digital side, customer experience with digital channels deployed by regulated institutions recorded instances of cash not dispensed at ATM but account debited, high downtime and truncation in transactions.
E-money – Mobile Wallet holders also complained of incomplete wallet to account transfer, mobile money loan fraud, delay in reversal of funds and poor customer service related to blocked wallet or sim by Electronic Money Issuer without notice.
Source: Ghana Business
