ABDRC consumer: Male, aged 31 to 50 year, from Bucharest-Ilfov, with a problem with the loan taken from the bank

Most Romanians who chose to have their disputes with banks settled amicably, via the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Center (ABDRC), are male, live in urban areas, are aged 31 to 50 years, and have a problem with their bank loan, according to a survey conducted early this year by ABDRC.

ABDRC reviewed the close to 750 compliant applications received in 2017 and in the first months of 2018, and profiled the consumers who use the services of the Center. The data shows that men are more prone to resolution of their conflicts with the banks via the Center (60%), this being explained also by the fact that men take more bank loans than women do.

The applications prevailingly (88%) come from urban areas, and the preferred interaction with ABDRC is online, as 83% of the applications were submitted by email.

At the same time, the consumers who approach ABDRC come largely from among the active population, the data showing that approximately 63% of them are aged 31 to 50 years. What is interesting is that a significant percentage (around 16%) come from people approaching or at the age of retirement (61 to 80 years).

Bucharest-Ilfov, the most development region of the country, leads in the territorial profiling ranking, with almost 50% of the compliant applications received by ABDRC. As regards the rest of the country, most of the applications were filed from county of Iasi (4.1%), followed by Constanta (2.9%), Prahova (2.73%), and Arges (2.5%).

“When we turned 2 years of operation, we decided to take a look into the data about the applications received by the Centers, and this provided us with valuable results. For instance, most of the consumers who use us prefer to communicate online, and this confirmed that great benefit offered by ABDRC in this respect, considering that the consumers do not have to be physically present in the Center to have their disputes resolved. ABDRC appeared to meet a need in the financial and banking industry, to help consumers have their problems with the banks resolved amicably and out of court, and we are ready to provide the necessary infrastructure, adapted to each type of consumer”, declared Alexandru Paunescu, member of the Steering Board of ABDRC.

Any consumer who has an agreement with a financial or banking institution established in Romania, may approach ABDRC whether they live in Romania or abroad.

In the first two and a half months of 2018, almost half of the compliant applications turned into casefiles, that is were accepted by banks or NBFIs to be resolved by ABDRC, while 32% of them are still in screening phase (internal review of the documents submitted by consumers).

According to the data collected by ABDRC, 90% of the applications regard loans, and only 10% concern problems related to other banking or lease services.
Thus, the bulk of the applications received from consumers during the first two years of operation regard reduction of the loan principal, removal of fees (management, tracking, monitoring or risk fees), reduction or recalculation of interests, removal of contractual clauses, problems with bank transfers, problems with forced execution, rescheduling, refinancing or staging out of a loan, resumption of the repayment schedule, return of fees (management, review, risk or tracking fees), return of other amounts, or deregistration from the Credit Register.