Canada Tightens Oversight of Banking Consumer Complaints

Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government will give regulators more power to monitor complaints by consumers against banks.

The government will enact regulations requiring banks to belong to federally approved external complaints bodies, and giving the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada the authority to monitor and enforce compliance, the Department of Finance said in a statement on its website.

The rules will set requirements for the complaints bodies in terms of independence, timeliness and transparency, according to the statement. The regulations will be published July 13 for a 30-day comment period.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Mayeda in Ottawa at amayeda@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net