As part of its supervisory mission, the Luxembourg Financial Sector Supervisory Commission (CSSF) has the mandate to ensure the protection of financial consumers and investors. Thus, it acts as a mediator for the out-of-court settlement of disputes following complaints from consumers, but also between professionals in the sector. Its mandate is to find amicable solutions.

In 2021, the CSSF opened 1,682 complaint proceedings and closed 1,317, according to the data published in its latest activity report. Remarkable fact: among this volume of files treated, no less than 974 were closed after acknowledgement of receipt by the CSSF and without any feedback from the complainant. The number of complaints received increased by 332 cases over the previous year.

The path of dialogue

The financial regulator explained that, as soon as a complaint is received, it responds with an acknowledgement of receipt which includes instructions to enable the complainant to resolve the situation without further intervention. In general, the CSSF indicates the name of the director responsible for handling complaints to be contacted at the entity concerned. The complainant is also directed to the page of the CSSF website which lists all useful information for the handling of their dispute.

In its 2021 activity report, the CSSF said this procedure was effective: “Judging by the high number of disputes that have been settled following these first instructions by the CSSF, the CSSF’s approach consisting in favouring the dialogue between the parties to the disputes and not intervening immediately with the supervised entity concerned by a complaint, is bearing fruit.” This method seems to be so effective that the number of cases settled in this way has increased by +174 cases compared to 2020.

A variety of complaints

Although it took the CSSF an average of 100 days to settle the various complaints in 2021, it was not able to follow up on all the complaints filed. 162 cases were deemed inadmissible, most of them concerning entities not under the supervision of the CSSF.

Among the complaints received, the CSSF was able to identify certain typologies as to the elements triggering the complaints. Many complaints concerned, for example, early repayment indemnities in relation to real estate loans, others concerned victims of computer hacking who had not received a refund of the sums stolen, and the same for payments made with a stolen bank card. Other cases were related to fees charged after termination of the business relationship or related to the fiduciary responsibility of asset managers.

Payment services

As regards the sectors subject to complaints, payment services remained in the majority with 68% of the cases. Payment accounts (11%) and private banking (8%) were the next most important sectors for the CSSF staff in handling complaints.

As regards the claimants’ countries of residence, Germany contributed to 30% of the cases, followed by the United Kingdom with 17%. Luxembourg came third with 16%. It should be noted that claimants were resident in at least 67 different countries in 2021. This situation tends to reflect the specific international nature of the Luxembourg financial sector, which is dependent on a majority of foreign players, assets and clients.

Originally published in French by Paperjam and translated for Delano