SORRY, WE CAN’T HELP YOU – OMBUDSMAN

MANZINI – Clients entering into financial deals with unauthorised shylocks should not carry their problems to the Ombudsman of Financial Services (OFS).

The OFS has opened its hands to all people who have concerns over financial services, whether it is the client or the provider.
This was said during a breakfast meeting held at the George Hotel yesterday where the OFS was discussing its 23 rules, mandate and stakeholders’ reactions to the rules. The rules are meant to provide guidance on resolving complaints relating to disputes involving financial services providers.

During her presentation, Tilungile Ntshalintshali listed certain matters that the Ombudsman will not accept.
These include cases brought in by people who are working with unregistered financial services providers; cases brought after the elapse of the two-year prescription period; complaints that had gone through legal proceedings in a court or other dispute resolution body established by law prior to lodging; and if the loss or damage arising from the delict exceeds E500 000 (Five Hundred Thousand Emalangeni), over and above the claimed contractual amount.
This E500 000 limit shall be subject to review.

Explaining the unauthorised shylock issue, Senior Legal Expert Sandile Zwane said, “The OFS may only deal with complaints against authorised financial services providers who are defined as respondents in terms of Section 78 of the FSRA Act 2010, as well as our Draft Rule 9.”
He highlighted that  Section 5 of the recently promulgated Consumer Credit Act 2016 (CCA 2016), prohibits a person/business from providing or purporting to provide or otherwise carry-on as being authorised to provide credit or pawn broking unless that person is the holder of a credit provider licence.

“This prohibits unlicensed ‘shylocks’ and money lending businesses that purport to provide credit who do not hold credit provider licences under the CCA 2016. As such, complaints arising from money borrowed from unlicensed ‘shylocks’ or moneylenders will not fall within the jurisdiction of the OFS Draft Rules and therefore, we would not be able to investigate such complaints.”

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: