SVS Securities - shut down?

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:

[ITI] didn't feature in the most recent FOS complaint volumes dataset, which has a threshold of 30, albeit those datasets only cover half-year periods:

Which is why ITI have been making cash offers tied to non-disclosure agreements?
The "SVS Client Support Group" lists some 63 problem reports which suggests that they had at least that number of members who should have lodged formal complaints to the FOS.
I'd guess that those who complained (and are complaining) directly to the FCA have been the most instrumental in persuading ITI to improve.

johnburman said:

As ever RasputinB you have hit the nail on the head

Those who complain to the FCA and FOS and go through the lengthy snail like FOS process get compensation. Obviously no NDA or similar. 

But who would deal with ITI directly? Do they ever settle for more money than the FOS award or do it more quickly? 

Just to reiterate, my comment quoted above related specifically to the number of ITI complaints that were escalated to FOS, which obviously excludes those that were resolved directly by ITI without such escalation - perhaps worth emphasising that FCA-regulated complaints processes entail unhappy customers dealing with the institution itself and only referring to FOS if they remain dissatisfied with the proposed resolution, so the number of complaints that make it to FOS should always be a subset of overall complaint volumes.

In other words, ITI should be making cash offers to resolve complaints (if compensation is the most appropriate mechanism), and the use of NDAs is irrelevant to FOS escalation, as customers should only escalate to FOS if they don't accept the proposed resolution - it's obviously customers' prerogative to do that if they're still unhappy, but the intention of the process is that this is the exception rather than the rule.

My understanding remains that complaining to the FCA might indeed contribute to them taking generic enforcement action against ITI but that the FCA won't actually intervene directly with an individual complaint between the customer and ITI, unless anyone has contrary experiences?

RasputinB

eskbanker said:
"customers should only escalate to FOS if they don't accept the proposed resolution - it's obviously customers' prerogative to do that if they're still unhappy, but the intention of the process is that this is the exception rather than the rule.."

Is it really the intention of the process that companies settle complaints with cash? Shouldn't it be at least part of the process that companies are incentivised to improve their service?

I think that firms like ITI could be persuaded to quickly put right their failings if most of its clients made strong complaints and not just once but, when there are multiple continuing failings (as have been described in this forum) about each failing.

If these are all fully run up through the complaint process then I’d expect that the costs, administrative expenses, potential FOS awards and attendant poor publicity from the published decisions, would be really effective in persuading ITI to improve its service.

johnburman

I do not think that there is anything that can be done to improve iti service to its clients. They simply do not care. And there seems nothing the FCA can or want to do to improve them. The FOS are ignored by or as close to ignoring iti as it is possible to be. 

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:
"customers should only escalate to FOS if they don't accept the proposed resolution - it's obviously customers' prerogative to do that if they're still unhappy, but the intention of the process is that this is the exception rather than the rule.."

Is it really the intention of the process that companies settle complaints with cash? Shouldn't it be at least part of the process that companies are incentivised to improve their service?

I think that firms like ITI could be persuaded to quickly put right their failings if most of its clients made strong complaints and not just once but, when there are multiple continuing failings (as have been described in this forum) about each failing.

If these are all fully run up through the complaint process then I’d expect that the costs, administrative expenses, potential FOS awards and attendant poor publicity from the published decisions, would be really effective in persuading ITI to improve its service.

The first paragraph isn't really what my quoted comment was about (its point being that an institution should aim to resolve complaints itself, with FOS only acting as a secondary safety net) but I do know what you're getting at, in terms of differentiating between short-term tactical activities (such as throwing money at a customer to make an individual complaint go away) and longer term holistic or strategic focus on continuous improvement, etc.  However, my understanding remains that the FCA-mandated complaints processes are effectively only geared towards the former, although perhaps there are other parts of the FCA regime (away from the DISP part of the handbook) that expect firms to take a bigger picture stance?

In an ideal world there might be some sort of virtuous circle where complaint volumes drove improvements but I just don't see it happening in the way you anticipate, and especially don't see the poor publicity angle as being a significant factor, and all the more so for a company of the minuscule (relative) scale of ITI.  Hargreaves Lansdown, for example, attracted more than 10,000 complaints in the last year's worth of published data - how much (non-Woodford) publicity have you seen about that?

Maybe it's a wearily cynical viewpoint but I believe that financial firms (as with most other customer-facing organisations) recognise that complaints are a cost of doing business, and, while they'd all intuitively like to eliminate them, they understand that the costs of doing so will often be prohibitive - there obviously are costs incurred in complaint handling, but equally if elimination (or even significant reduction) of complaints was genuinely to be targeted, the costs of additional staff, more training, systems upgrades, etc, etc, are always going to be weighed against the benefit....

RasputinB

Hi eskbanker,

I think that what you say, especially in your last paragraph, makes perfect sense.

As you may have guessed, most of the words in my previous post came from the FOS. (See DRN2331800)

Although I don’t think much of the FOS as an organization there will be decent individuals working there who can see the rights and wrongs of the existing systems.

It is understandable that johnburman and others think that ITI don’t care. We probably all agree that a few hundred pounds to extinguish complaints is chicken feed compared to the cost of actually fixing the problems – which should now be historic anyway.

But I do think that you are underestimating the cost of reputational damage. I believe that the ITI scheme was to gain a presence as a player in the London stockbroking arena. Some 18,000 clients would enhance their status (even if revenues were low they can be bolstered from other ITI entities – see their accounts) and their marketing appears to be geared to their international presence.

To have what should be the London jewel in the crown unable to take on retail clients due to regulatory problems must have devalued the whole enterprise considerably. Not to mention the loss of face.

Even firms with great PR like Hargreaves Lansdowne will have some concern. After all it is well known that the share transfer process between UK stockbrokers is a disgrace, so much so that they, and others, have made noises about improving it.

Thrugelmir

RasputinB said:

Hi eskbanker,

But I do think that you are underestimating the cost of reputational damage. I believe that the ITI scheme was to gain a presence as a player in the London stockbroking arena. Some 18,000 clients would enhance their status (even if revenues were low they can be bolstered from other ITI entities – see their accounts) and their marketing appears to be geared to their international presence.

Outside this board. There'll be a shrug of the shoulders. A name people will never ever be aware of. Just like SVS.  Suggesting that other financial centres never have issues is nonsense. Time to put this thread to bed. 

RasputinB

Thrugelmir said:
Time to put this thread to bed. 

MoneySavingExpert.com worried about legal threats, again?

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

As you may have guessed, most of the words in my previous post came from the FOS. (See DRN2331800)

Don't think that was the right reference, as https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-2331080.pdf doesn't seem to have those words?

johnburman

The case referred to said:

 Mr I’s account was blocked from 7 October 2019 to 16 October 2019, being a total of nine days. In the circumstances of this complaint, and based on the evidence both parties have provided me, my view is that nine days was a reasonable period for Revolut to keep Mr I’s account blocked. 

9 days.  so acting under a regulatory mandate 9 days delay was fine.

But ITI were way more than 9 days block, and caused by their own failings. 

RasputinB

eskbanker said:

RasputinB said:

As you may have guessed, most of the words in my previous post came from the FOS. (See DRN2331800)

Don't think that was the right reference, as https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-2331080.pdf doesn't seem to have those words?

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN2331800.pdf (without hyphen) is opening the correct decision on my computer.  But you may need to do a new search - Barclays Bank UK PLC; Terry Connor ombudsman; 25 Apr 2019.

"The hope is that the costs, administrative expenses, potential awards by this service and attendant poor publicity from upheld decisions by this service, which are published, would cause Barclays to quickly put right the failings complained of."