The Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre started its alternative dispute resolution operational activity on 01.03.2016, with the receipt of the first application from a consumer.

In 2019, we received as many as 3,123 written applications from consumers:

• 2,117 of the written applications were found compliant;
• 66 were found non-compliant;
• 940 were requests for various information (about the ADR procedures).

Distribution of the complete casefiles to conciliators is done randomly (via the IT App), term of the availability and workload of each conciliator.

Means of filing compliant applications:

• 699 were filed by email; ;
• 1.182 were filled in/submitted online (via the IT App which went live on 23 July 2018; this is now the method of choice for consumers);
• 72 were brought to, and registered personally by consumers with the office of ABDRC;
• 164 were mailed.

The applications received from consumers covered the following topics:

• Problems in connection credit products:

-Repayments (fees/commissions, interest);

-Reduction of loan balance/debt/installation, or writing off thereof;

-Rescheduling/refinancing/staging-out;

-Agreement renegotiation/rebalancing (including in case of hardships);

-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;

-Credit Office (deregistration from CO);

-Removal of certain clauses.

• Operational problems:

-Problems with operation of the ATMs (including repayment of amounts);

-Problems in connection with bank transfers and repayment of transaction fees;

-Repayment of amounts in case of processing errors;

-Recovery of amount wrongly transferred by consumers (internet banking);

-Requests for clarifications as to calculation and the amounts withdrawn by banks from the credit card;

-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, statement of accounts, etc.);

-Repayment of garnished amounts;

-Mortgage deregistration.

• Qualification of the 2,117 compliant applications (as at December 31, 2019):

-664 turned into casefiles (of which, 9 casefiles based on applications filed in 2018);

-176 are currently screened (as at 31.12.2019);

-233 applications were settled amicably after the referral to ABDRC;

-1,053 were closed.

The applications filed with ABDRC concerned both financial and banking institutions, as well as non-banking financial institutions, as follows:

Banks:

• 1,770 compliant applications;
• 645 were turned into casefiles;
• 69 are currently screened (as at 31.12.2019);
• 207 applications were settled amicably after the referral to ABDRC;
• 858 were closed.

NBFIs:

• 347 compliant applications;
• 19 turned into casefiles;
• 26 applications were settled amicably after the referral to ABDRC;
• 195 were closed.

Applications are closed when traders refused the settlement of the disputes via the ADR procedure, and reasons for closing compliant applications fall within several categories:

• Good reasons – 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 applicant is a legal entity;

-the information/documents required for resolving the application have not been supplied.

• 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.

As many as 176 applications are in the screening phase (reviews of completeness of the documentation, requests for information and supporting documents).

Qualification of the 664 casefiles in the procedure with proposed solution (as at 31.12.2019):

• 441 successful resolutions/cases (solutions accepted by both parties) – accounting for 86% of the total solutions rendered;
• 74 reports/cases where the parties have not agreed upon a common solution – accounting for 14% of the total solutions rendered;
• 18 casefiles in which one party withdrew from the procedure;
• 21 preliminary casefiles;
• 110 casefiles in the phase of discussions with the parties.

The total benefits resulted from the conciliation managed by ABDRC were in excess of EUR 1.255 million in 2019, going up by approximately 25% vs. 2018 when the amount of these benefit reached EUR 1.014 million.

Overall, since the beginning of ABDRC’s activity, the benefits resulted from the conciliation managed via Acquisition amount to more than EUR 2.65 million.

Statistical information as at 31.12.2019 is available in the charts below:

*Data available as at 31.12.2019
*Data available as at 31.12.2019, considering that more than 130 casefiles are now in progress.

Explanatory notes:

Casefiles favourably resolved, by resolutions = casefiles where parties have agreed to the solution proposed by the conciliator;
Reports = casefiles/cases where the parties have not agreed upon a solution.