Ms MaryRose McGovern:

We are a member of the European Union's FIN-NET, which is the network of alternative dispute resolution, ADR, bodies, for financial service complaints across the member states. We have been conscious over the last couple of years of the increased level of cross-border service provision. This is what the European Union is about. It is about the free movement of people and goods and services. Paradoxically, this cross-border passporting to provide services in other jurisdictions creates challenges for consumers across the EU, including in Ireland. For example, if an entity that is regulated by a competent authority - another central bank in another member state - passports into Ireland and offers banking services here, we may have to refer the complaint to a different ADR body in the relevant member state, if we look at the contract and it states it is governed by the laws of the different member state. We cannot hold ourselves up as being capable of resolving complaints pursuant to Latvian, French or Spanish law, for example. In that case, we put them in touch with the appropriate FIN-NET body.

We have been working with the Department of Finance on this for the last while. A consultation period was opened by the European Union towards the end of 2022. This consultation process is looking at how the ADR directive is working and how the online dispute resolution, ODR, directive is working as well. We took the opportunity to raise this issue in our formal submission on the ADR piece. We are supported in that by the Department of Finance, which also made a submission to the European Union so that those comments can feed into how the future of ADR is going to look.

In addition, I do some work on the steering committee for FIN-NET. We have sent out a survey to all the ADR bodies across the European Union with a view to gathering some data on whether the picture we see, which is an increasing number of complaints every year being referred to a different ADR body, is similar in the other member states. If this is an issue created by cross-border services provision, Ireland cannot be the only place where it is becoming an issue for consumers as the landscape evolves and there are more and more fintech service providers, as they are referred to, passporting into other European states. That is likely to give rise to a larger number of complaints which we will have to refer onwards.

That may not be a difficulty, but it is possibly not the expectation of consumers in Ireland that if they make a complaint to the FSPO, they may be sent to another body. There was an interesting article in theFinancial Timesabout a month ago that one of my colleagues in the office referred me to, which shone a light, as it were, on the number of fintech complaints being received by our colleagues in the Financial Ombudsman Service, FOS, in the UK. I appreciate that the UK is not a member of the EU, but the FOS is an affiliate member of the FIN-NET network of alternative dispute resolution, ADR, bodies. Some of the data that were included in that Financial Timesarticle is probably worth having a look at, because it shows that fintech-type complaints are on the increase, and not only that, but the experience of the FOS in the UK is that fintech-type complaints are potentially more likely to be upheld complaints. There have definitely been some issues emerging with people finding themselves locked out of their accounts and, more frustratingly, not being able to speak to a human being with a view to getting to the bottom of it. We are in a constantly evolving landscape and it is important that consumers in Ireland and in the European Union have an appropriate body to bring their complaint to, in order that they can resolve their complaint in a way that is relatively quick, and can get to the bottom of the issues.