The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission ("CBIRC") has recently issued the Administrative Measures for Handling of Consumer Complaints in Banking and Insurance Sectors (the "Measures"), with effect from March 1, 2020.

The Measures are divided into six sections, namely general provisions, organizational management, complaint handling, working systems, supervision and administration, and supplementary provisions. Among others, the Measures advocate higher efficiency of complaint handling, adding that for consumer complaints in which facts are clear and the matters in dispute are simple, banks and insurance institutions shall complete handling such complaints within 15 days and inform complainants of the results, and in case of complicated matters, the 15-day time limit may be extended to 30 days; if the circumstance is especially complex or due to other special reasons, the time limit may be extended again by another 30 days, subject to the necessary examination and approval process. In addition, the Measures call on banks and insurance institutions to establish sound systems for retrospectively finding out and rectifying the root causes and for pursuing the liability, improve the mechanisms concerning information disclosure and evaluation and assessment, and establish the mechanism of withdrawal from complaint handling. Furthermore, the Measures prescribe that banks and insurance institutions shall neither refuse to accept reasonable requests made by complainants, nor require complainants to provide materials that the institutions have already had or could obtain through checking internal archives.

(Source: China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission)