Financial Services Complaints Body Appoints GM

Financial Services Complaints Body Appoints Trevor Slater General Manager

Financial Services Complaints Ltd (FSCL), the country’s first dispute resolutions scheme approved under the Financial Services Providers (Registration and Disputes Resolution) Act 2008, has appointed Trevor Slater as General Manager, effective 18 May.

Trevor Slater joins FSCL from the Office of the Banking Ombudsman where he headed up the conciliation programme. Prior to taking up that role in July 2008, for eight years he was part of the senior management team at FICS (the Financial Industry Complaints Service) in Australia, performing the role of National Relations Manager. Trevor is a highly experienced financial dispute resolution practitioner having worked in the industry since early 1990’s with AMP Life. As well being a qualified mediator, he holds a Masters Degree in Conflict Resolutions from Melbourne’s La Trobe University.

Kenneth Johnston, FSCL’s chairman, said: “Trevor brings a wealth of experience to the FSCL team and we are very fortunate to have secured his services. He has been involved with FSCL from its inception and was responsible for developing our complaints handling process.”

Established late last year, FSCL was approved as a dispute resolution scheme by the Hon. Heather Roy, Minister of Consumer Affairs, and the approval gazetted on 29 April 2010.

FSCL is an industry based dispute resolution scheme that is free to consumers. FSCL has been established to provide independent dispute resolution to all financial service providers and consumers of their products and services. Its major focus is on helping parties to resolve their dispute by such methods as assisted negotiation and conciliation.

Trevor Slater said, "The key to good dispute resolution is to seek a resolution early. Neither party wants a complaint to drag on forever as it is frustrating and costly in time and in money. The FSCL process is designed to assist Financial Service Providers (FSP) and their clients to resolve complaints quickly and efficiently and to minimise the need for the lengthy process of formal decision making where often one party wins and the other loses."

As part of belonging to FSCL, scheme participants will be provided guidance and advice on establishing good internal dispute resolution practices. This will help FSPs to be able to resolve a complaint early and without escalation to FSCL which will ultimately benefit their clients.

Mr Johnston said, “While we are experiencing strong interest from brokers and advisers and now have over 200 financial service providers who have joined the FSCL scheme, all financial providers are required to become a member of an approved dispute resolution scheme by 30 November this year.”

The Register of Financial Providers opens on 1 July 2010 and advisers must be registered by 30 November in order to offer financial services to the public from 1 December.

“We encourage Financial Service Providers to act early as our scheme participants have done to ensure they comply with the new regulatory regime,” Mr Johnston said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media