I. About ABDRC Establishment

1. The Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre (ABDRC) is an independent non-governmental apolitical, not-for-profit legal entity of public interest established under the Government Ordinance no. 38/2015 on alternative resolution of disputes between consumers and traders, which transposes at domestic level Directive No 2013/11/EU on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) for consumer disputes, as well as Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on online dispute resolution (ODR) for consumer disputes.
2. ABDRC’s work is rendered at two levels:

• administrative – organization and functioning of ABDRC as legal entity;
• operational – organization and performance of the alternative dispute resolution activity.

II. Administrative activity of ABDRC

1.  Activity of the Steering Board

The Steering Board provides smooth operation of ABDRC’s administrative activity. The Board members are not involved in the operational activity of the Centre (as examination and resolution of the disputes are handled exclusively by conciliators), and their duties and powers cover approval and amendment of the dispute settlement procedures, selection/approval of conciliators, preparation and approval of the income and expenditure budget, etc.

Highlights of the Steering Board’s activity in 2024:

• continuation of all the activities (conciliation, meetings of the Steering Board in physical format or via email, communication, employees’ presence in the office, meetings with traders/collaborators, etc.);
• continuation of the communication activity via different channels adapted to the ABDRC’s purpose/mission, as well as ensuring the necessary conditions for the development/expansion of this activity also on social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok;
• completion of the try of the higher appeal lodged by ABDRC to the High Court of Cassation and Justice (HCCJ) against the solution handed down by Bucharest Court of Appeal on the substance of the administrative proceedings (Case no. 6047/2/2018); this action was brought up by ABDRC in August 2018 against the Ministry of Economy, which was later replaced the Ministry of Energy during the proceedings, under the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 212/28.12.2020 laying down measures for the central public administration and amending and supplementing a number of regulatory acts, and challenged the Decision no. 2377/DA/31.05.2018 of the Ministry of Economy dismissing the request of ABDRC to be included in the list of Romanian ADR entities due to the absence of the a representative of consumer associations in the Steering Board; however, such reason cannot be held in any way against Banking ADR Centre as it has no obligation/power whatsoever in relation to appointment/nomination of representatives by the entities sitting in the Steering Board; the Centre employed all efforts to prevent this issue being settled in court, but it was left without any possibility to have its repeated requests to be included in the national list of ADR entities addressed amicably; the court hearing the substance of the case ruled on 11 November 2022, after 4 years and 3 months since commencement of the proceedings to the effect of dismissing the action brought up by ABDRC; the grounded decision of the Court of Appeal was served to us on 17 October 2023, and ABDRC lodged a higher appeal against it on 31 October 2023; the first court hearing was set for 26 November 2024, before the HCCJ – Division for Administrative and Tax Disputes; the higher appeal was heard during the said hearing, and the HCCJ postponed the ruling to 10 December 2024; the HCCJ dismissed the higher appeal lodged by ABDRC against the civil judgment on substance no. 222/11.11.2022 as unfounded; we are now waiting to be served the reasoning by the higher appeal court/HCCJ; as soon as we come into possession of its reasoning, we will look into the steps we need to take further to eventually have ABDRC included in the national list of ADR entities;
• approval of the financial statements executed as at 31 December 2023, and provision of information about the 2023 Audit Report;
• election of the President of the Steering Board for a 1-year term of office;
• approval of the 2025 Income and Expenditure Budget (2025 IEB) of the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre.

2.  Communication, promotion, and financial information and education by ABDRC

Communication takes place across the following levels (according to ABDRC’s communication strategy):

• communication with banks and NBFIs (traders);
• communication with consumers;
• communication with the media;
• communication with stakeholders;
• communication with conciliators;
• holding of work meetings with conciliators, whenever these are necessary, as part of the process of updating/reviewing the Regulation of the Procedural Secretariat and the ADR procedures, as the amicable dispute resolution work advances;
• organizing working meetings with representatives of commercial banks (bilateral meetings) to improve the activity of alternative dispute resolution.

2.1. ABDRC’s Communication and Promotion Activity

Communication with, and information of consumers and traders about ABDRC take place via the following channels:

• communication via the traditional media channels (TV, Radio, Written Press, Online, Blogging);
• communication via alternative channels (outdoor advertising banners, financial education campaign by arranging a financial training/education room in the premises of ABDRC);
• communication via own channels: Website, Newsletter, ABDRC outbound call-centre, Facebook, LinkedIn (page and profile), Youtube, Instagram, and Tik-Tok;
• organization of/participation in conferences, workshops, debates (also online), etc.;
• communication via commercial banks (online and offline: leaflets, posters, stickers, video production);
• communication via courts of law;
• communication via consumer associations.

2.2. Information and financial education

Consumer information about ABDRC and their financial education is performed via the following channels:

• Communication via the traditional media channels (TV, Radio, Written Press, Online) by campaigning the work of ABDRC, the cases resolved and the benefits of conciliation in news, talk-shows, financial education media projects, public awareness campaigns, etc.;
• Communication via own channels: Website, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tik-Tok;
• Creation of a financial education section on the csalb.ro website;
• Sending out the monthly newsletters;
• Call-centre operators (outbound) calling back the consumers who had agreed to be contacted after the Facebook campaigns;
• Running together with the social media agency Marketiu a campaign to promote financial education messages on the YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Tik-Tok channels;
• Communication to the press through press releases and media campaigns in the local press, online and in collaboration with various media entities;
• Participation in financial education projects with institutions such as the National Bank of Romania, the Academy of Economic Studies, independent bodies, or media outlets;
• Call-centre activity, reporting, regular training, operation of the ABDRC website chat, message adaptation;
• Organization of/participation in conferences, workshops, webinars, etc. (face-to-face and online);
• Financial education through the ABDRC conciliators: press coverage to promote the work of the Centre by press releases or participating in conferences and meetings;
• Video productions (distributed in the media and on ABDRC’s own channels) where journalists, top managers of commercial banks, representatives of the National Bank of Romania and of the Romanian Association of Banks, ABDRC conciliators and representatives, experts in financial education and financial planning advise consumers on financial education topics and on how to manage their relations with banks and their personal fianancials;
• Provision of information via commercial banks:
• press-releases involving financial and banking institutions;
• participation of bank representatives in interviews and video productions;
• Provision of information via courts of law:
• Press releases involving court presidents and judges;
• Sending out and distributing ABDRC information flyers in courts of law;
• Organization of conferences for judges, together with the National Institute of Magistracy.

3.  Other administrative activities

3.1. Ensuring observance by the Centre of the personal data protection rules

ABDRC has put in place a number of technical and organizational measures to protect natural persons in terms of personal data processing (these measures had been updated and supplemented back in 2018, when Regulation No 679/2016 came into force). The aim is to ensure the following:

• an adequate level of security for the data and information of any kind held by ABDRC, and compliance with the backup and disaster recovery requirements by putting in place the necessary systems (Antivirus, SOC – Security Operations Center, DLP – Data Loss Prevention, Veeam Agent – Electronic Data Backup);
• a VPN solution with a view to keeping secure the work equipment and materials for each employee and collaborator of ABDRC (via connection to the secured Internet network of the Centre). Compliance by employees/collaborators with the telework requirements is regularly reviewed.
• work procedures have been devised to cover for the data protection part for both the operational activity of ABDRC – Procedure Secretariat, and for its administrative activity – secretariat, accounting & HR, communication & PR;
• compliance with the procedures is constantly monitored;
• the contracts for products and services are updated to ensure optimal security (security licences, backup licences, etc.)

3.2. Call-Centre

• The call-centre is used also to collect several categories of information about the subject-matter of the consumers’ enquiries, and/or about the sources they found about the Centre from. à This data is used including in our communication actions by narrowing-down the scope of the promotion efforts to the most relevant/efficient means of conveying information about the availability and services of ABDRC.

Source: answers provided by consumers who call the ABDRC call-centre at 021 9414

III. Operational activity of ABDRC

The operational activity of ABDRC is detailed in the Annex which is an integral part of this document.

IV. Conclusions

The ABDRC services continue to be accessed by the Romanian consumers, the number of applications recorded in 2024 exceeding the figure of 2023 (3,568 applications filed v a total of 2,932 applications in 2023; the weekly average is higher in 2024, with 69 applications/week v 56 applications/week in 2023).

Benefits of conciliation:

• avoidance of court proceedings, and continuation of the contractual relations between the parties;
• short case settlement time (less than 90 days);
• no charges for consumers, and
• expertise of conciliators (the members of the Body of Conciliators are individuals with at least 10 years of expertise in the financial and banking area, and are well known for their professional and educational background and reputation);
• are strong arguments for both the consumers, and the financial and banking institutions involved in these negotiations, particularly during an economically difficult time like the one we have been going through over the last 5 years (2020 – 2024) and which we expect to see also in 2025.

In this context, the following are key findings about the first 9 years of operation:

• taking further the activities aimed at raising awareness of consumers, in particular with the support of traders, about of the benefits of accessing the services provided by ABDRC;
• the need to determine/convince consumers and traders to opt for (negotiation-based) alternative dispute resolution methods, avoiding the contentious way, in court proceedings, and, additionally, redirecting some of the disputes currently pending before courts towards ABDRC to be settled amicably, through conciliation (in years 2021 – 2024, 669 cases/casefiles pending before courts of law were settled with the aid of ABDRC conciliators, at the initiatives of either the banks or the consumers involved in these proceedings);
• the need to determine and put in place systematic/concerted communication techniques to promote the Centre and capture the interest of consumers, and create a fostering environment among consumers;
• the NBFIs need to become more open to entering the conciliation procedure, and both the banks and the NBFIs should reduce their number of applications unreasonably closed;
• a key finding from work of the Centre so far is that both parties have a good appetite for the procedure with proposed solution/conciliation, to the detriment of the procedure with enforced solution/arbitration (to date, no case has been ever settled pursuing the procedure with enforced solution/arbitration);
• as of Q1 2020, ABDRC can also address conciliation applications received from legal entities related to payment services and electronic money issuing;
• ABDRC has proven an extraordinary capacity to adapt its activity to the requirements of the online work, as follows: more than 90% of the Centre’s work was rendered online, and conciliators continued to remotely facilitate the negotiations between consumers and banks/NBFIs (via email and over the phone). Additionally, the app, which is used to manage the applications and case directly on the ABDRC website, has proven its efficiency during the entire time when the Centre was able and continues to smoothly mediate the relation between consumers and traders;
• the support of the competent authority (currently, this is the Ministry of Energy) is required to achieve cross-border cooperation and registration of ABDRC on the European online platform (ODR – Online Dispute Resolution) and with FIN-NET.

In 2024, ABDRC made a number of recommendations to banks:

1. The consumer applications referred by ABDRC to banks should be reviewed by the credit institution with the amount of flexibility required for the parties to reach an agreement. Essentially, the aim is to decrease, and keep, the number/share of closed application below 10%.

An important share of the closed applications were rejected for valid reasons. As at 31 December 2024, we saw 935 applications for deregistration from the CR (377 intended at banks + 558 intended at NBFIs), compared to 1,234 applications of this type reported for the same period of 2023. It should be recalled that most of the applications concerning the Credit Office, the First House programme or assigned loans are rejected because, on a case-by-case basis, these are governed by a special piece of legislation which leaves but limited, if no room at all for negotiation. The number applications for deregistration from the Credit Register (CR) has followed a decreasing trend compared to last year.    

2. Our recommendation was to try to increase the number of applications turned into cases given also the following:
   1. consideration will be given to the possibility of putting an end to the current court proceedings further to settlement of an application via ABDRC, as well as to the possibility of identifying customers with potential problems and guiding them towards ABDRC (thus avoiding courts cases as the problems concerned are addressed under the cases formed and settled via the Centre);
   2. the applications entering the restructuring or forced execution flows may also be settled/negotiated via ABDRC;
   3. when an application is initially closed, but a solution is later found for the consumer, the trader may inform the client thereof and recommend them to fila a new application with ABDRC (unless the claims therein can be addressed directly, through amicable settlement).

3. The mandates granted by banks are recommended to include value caps that are different from/higher than those set out in the commercial offers of the respective banks’ portfolio, thus proving the usefulness and benefits of settlement via ABDRC, further to the consumer rejecting the bank’s initial offer (in the amicable settlement attempt).
4. The banks are recommended to consider, from the very beginning, the amicable settlement of the less complex cases that would otherwise would end up with ABDRC, in case of a refusal by the consumer.
5. Since five years have passed since ABDRC’s jurisdiction was enlarged to cover also for legal entities, banks are recommended to start accepting also cases that involve this category of customers. In 2024, out of 6 compliant applications received from legal entities, 5 concluded with the issue a Resolution and one was closed by the trader for valid reasons.

Final conclusions

• Over its close to 9 years of operational activity, ABDRC has proven that this new paradigm – an alternative way of resolving disputes – is a win-win approach for both consumers and traders. The possibility that both parties can be involved in changing certain given characteristics of a contractual framework is the starting point for a shift of mindset about the banking contracts/services, at the level of society; 

• Thus, parties can understand one another and forge a mutual-trust relationship, this being one of the key benefits brought along by the ADR procedures in time, and the facts and figures stand proof thereof: since its establishment and until the end of 2024, 4,237 cases concluded with the parties coming to terms with the aid and facilitation of one of ABDRC’s conciliators. To this add another 2,392 amicable settlements between the parties, after consumers having firsts referred the matter to the Banking ADR Centre;

• Conciliation via ABDRC should become the alternative of choice for a consumer when they need to address a problem with the traders in the financial and banking system, to the detriment of the actions brought before courts or other litigation-based methods;

• Consumers are encouraged to keep an open mind to building a trust-based relationship with the bank, considering that the problems reported by consumers are understood and accepted by the bank when they are objective/justified and reasonable. Also, the fine-tuning of the conciliation mechanisms, added to the banks’ willingness to adopt a flexible attitude to the requests received from customers can help constantly and significantly increase the number of successful applications with contributions from all parties.

• There is a need for more visibility in advancing the possibility that the Centre addresses also disputes that involve legal entities (on matters concerning payments and issuing of electronic money), with a view to improving the business environment and the mutual trust between the providers of such services and companies or public institutions;

• At the end of 2024, 167 court cases were discontinued because the parties wanted and managed to find an amicable solution with the help of ABDRC. In years 2021 – 2024, ABDRC conciliators helped settle 669 cases/casefiles pending before courts of law, at the initiatives of either the banks or the consumers involved in these proceedings. ABDRC continues its efforts to make more popular, and ensure media coverage for, alternative resolution through the courts of law in other counties of the country;

The constant involvement of all stakeholders (the National Bank of Romania, the Romanian Association of Banks, the consumer protection associations) will help a constant and important development in time of this type of settlement, as well as build a trust-based relationship between consumers and banks/NBFIs.

V. ANNEX

REPORT

on the operational activity of

ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION

as at 31 December 2024

The Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre started its alternative dispute resolution operational activity on 1 March 2016.

In 2024, 3,740 written applications and 2,251 phone calls were received from consumers, and 3,568 of the written applications were found compliant, while 172 of them were qualified as incompliant. Distribution of the complete casefiles to conciliators is done randomly, depending of the availability and the workload of each conciliator.

Consumers used the following means to submit their applications (for the 3,568 compliant applications): 2,644 compliant applications concerning banks (filed by consumers/individuals and legal entities) + 924 compliant applications concerning NBFIs.

For Banks:

Individuals:

• 964 were submitted online, via the ABDRC website;
• 1,298 were emailed;
• 44 were brought to, and registered personally by consumers with the office of ABDRC;
• 332 were mailed.

Legal Entities:

• 6 request received by email;

For NBFIs:

• 855 were submitted online, via the ABDRC website;
• 64 were emailed;
• 1 was brought to, and registered by the consumer with the office of ABDRC;
• 4 applications were mailed.

The applications received from consumers covered the following topics:

• Problems in connection with credit products:

• • Credit Office (deregistration from CO);
  • Refunds (of fees/commissions, interest);
  • Shift from ROBOR to IRCC;
  • Reduction of loan principal/debt/instalment, or writing off overdue amounts;
  • Rescheduling/refinancing/staging-out;
  • Agreement renegotiation/rebalancing (including for hardship);
  • Finding a solution to address the problems (in general);
  • Conversion of the loan currency;
  • Problems with insurance policies (bancassurance);
  • Interest recalculation;
  • Payment commitments;
  • Maturity acceleration;
  • Removal of certain clauses.

• Operational problems:

• • Problems with operation of the ATMs (including refunds);
  • Problems in connection with wire transfers and refunds of transaction fees;
  • Refunds in case of processing errors;
  • Recovery of amount wrongly transferred by consumers (internet banking);
  • Provision of clarifications about calculation of the amounts withdrawn by banks from the credit card account;
  • Other card-related problems (cancellation/name change);
  • Problems in connection with the exchange rate and interests charged when using the cards abroad;
  • Problems regarding inter-banking transfers.

• Problems related to other types of activities:

• • Problems in connection with forced execution (suspensions/stays of proceedings);
  • Requests to be issued documents (repayment schedules, statements of account, etc.);
  • Refunds of garnished amounts;
  • Mortgage deregistration;
  • Fraud committed via bank channels.

The main reason for closing an application is the refusal of traders to have the dispute settle via ADR procedure, and the reasons for closing fall into several categories:

• Good reasons (main) – the application concerns:
  • deregistration of entries from the Credit Office;
  • “First House” loans;
  • assigned claims;
  • the state premium under saving-credit contracts.

• Reasons related to consumers:
  • selection of a trader the business of which is not regulated by the National Bank of Romania;
  • selection of a trader they don’t have commercial relations with;
  • the information/documents required for resolving the application have not been supplied;
  • the consumer does not reply within 90 days;
  • the consumer withdraws.

• Other reasons:
  • pending court proceedings;
  • forced execution procedures have already been initiated;
  • traders made several offers, but all of them were turned down by consumers (before approaching ABDRC), and traders maintain their point of view in the initial answer sent to consumers;
  • lack of grounds (claimed by the trader).

Qualification of the 3,568 compliant applications:

For banks (of the 2,644 compliant applications received):

• 1,054 turned into cases (23 cases from applications submitted at the end of 2023);
• 261 were in screening phase;
• 181 were settled amicably after a referral to ABDRC;
• 246 adjoined applications;
• 902 were closed.

For NBFIs (of the 924 compliant applications received):

• 1 turned into a casefile;
• 26 were in screening phase;
• 120 were settled amicably after a referral to ABDRC;
• 777 were closed.

At the end of 2024, the negotiation procedures involving consumers and banks facilitated by ABDRC resulted into benefits of approx. EUR 3.003 million. Thus, the total amount of the benefits obtained (in the close to 9 years of operational activity of the Centre) is approx. EUR 14.325 million;

The WEBSITE www.csalb.ro provides information about:

• Regulation for organization of the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre and for functioning of the Steering Board;
• Procedural Rules regarding:
  • ADR procedure concluded with proposal of a solution;
  • ADR procedure concluded with enforcement of a solution;
  • ADR procedure concluded with proposal of a solution for legal entities;
  • ADR Procedure concluded with enforcement of a solution for legal entities;
• Steering Board;
• List of Conciliators;
• Short contact number: 021 9414, available every day between 09:00 AM – 06:00 PM;
• Press releases and media coverage;
• Miscellaneous useful information for consumers and traders.