Do you have a complaint?

If you have a complaint against some financial organisation you should proceed as follows:

1. Put forward your complaint to the financial organisation

First of all address your complaint to the financial organisation whose service or procedure you are complaining about. You may submit your complaint to the financial organisations in oral (in person or on telephone) or in writing (by mail, e-mail, fax).

In case of written complaints the financial organisations are always obligated to provide a written statement of their position and of their measures taken in relation to your complaint, including a justification, and to send it to you within 30 days following their receipt of your complaint.

If your complaint is rejected, the financial organisation should inform you in writing on the Financial Arbitration Board or on the Financial Supervisory Authority – depending on the nature of your complaint – that you may address with your complaint to initiate a procedure.

2. Put forward your complaint to the Hungarian Financial Supervisory Authority

In case the financial organisation missed to respond to your complaint within the legal timeframe, or it misled you, or other violation of legal provisions could arise from the case you have the option to put forward your complaint to the Hungarian Financial Supervisory Authority (HFSA).

However; it is very important; that you submit your complaint firstly to the financial service provider. If you miss this step the HFSA must refuse your complaint.

If you send the complaint to the HFSA always make sure that the complaint contains:

• the name and the address of the complainant

• a short and clear description of the complaint

• a formal request on what the complainant would like to ask form the HFSA

• the documents proving the complainant’s statements.

The procedure initiated by the HFSA upon the complainant’s request takes three months. This time limit does not include actions conducted in order to clarify the facts and collect the necessary documents and can be extended with 30 days. Therefore we call the attention of the complainants that the procedure time can be as long as 4-5 months.

3. Litigation procedure, procedures of Financial Arbitration Board

It is important to know that the procedures conducted by the HFSA are not meant to provide legal remedy for individual consumer grievances. Within the framework of its consumer procedure and in its competency as a supervisory authority the HFSA has no possibility to rule by way of policy on legal disputes resulting from individual contractual relationships, or to directly force a supervised institution to take some individual measure or to provide compensation for damages. This is possible only in a process of civil litigation or in process of the Financial Arbitration Board.

The Financial Arbitration Board is a professionally independent body operated by the HFSA.

In order to successfully settle disputes without the use of courts between the institution subject to the complaint and you as the consumer making the complaint, you have the option to bring your complaint to Financial Arbitration Board (FAB). The FAB will attempt to settle disputes between consumers and financial organisations relating to the conclusion and performance of contracts in connection with the services supplied with a view to reaching an out-of-court settlement.

To this end, the Financial Arbitration Board will attempt to reach a conciliation agreement or, failing this, to adopt a decision in the case to enforce consumer rights simply and practically and under the principle of cost-efficiency.

The resolution brought by the FBA will only be binding on the financial organisation if it has submitted itself to the resolution.