In 2023, banking disputes will increase sharply, with the vast majority of disputes relating to online payment transactions and scams!
Marie-Christine Caffet, mediator with the French Banking Federation (FBF), presented her 2023 activity report in June to the Consultative Committee for the financial sector.
Banking mediation: very sharp increase in requests for mediation
Requests for banking mediation have “exploded” by more than 23% compared to 2022. An increase mainly due to:
- With the increase in disputes over online payment transactions and scams,
- Implementation of the ACPR recommendation requiring banks to strictly comply with the two-month deadline after filing a complaint,
- As well as welcoming new members of the French Banking Federation (FBF).
More than more than 20,000 referrals were recorded. 38% were declared admissible by the mediator, i.e. 7,734 files.
As in 2022, The disputes have largely concerned fraud and payment fraud : 5 656 dossiers of the 7,734 deemed admissible, followed by disputes relating to bank account management (771 cases) and credits (403 cases).
In total, 5,452 disputes were resolved in 2023, including 3,144 in favor of the consumer.
Bank mediation: amount of damages
It should be noted that the financial stakes are higher than last year. Thus, of the 7,734 admissible files, the financial damage was greater than €5,000 in a quarter of the cases.
- 925 present damage of less than €500 (666 cases in 2022),
- 955 cases for damage estimated between €500 and €1,000 (795 cases in 2022),
- 2,687 cases present damages estimated at between €1,000 and €5,000 (1,987 cases in 2022),
- 913 cases present an estimated loss of between €5,000 and €10,000 (563 cases in 2022)
- Finally, for 962 files, the estimated damage is greater than €10,000 (440 files in 2022).
Disputes and scams mainly involving online transactions
2023 recorded a “explosion” of online payment fraud : they now represent 80% of files, compared to 50% in 2018.
The mediator hopes, however, that the measures recommended in May 2023 by the Payment Security Observatory (OSMP) will quickly lead to a slowdown in file submissions, “banks being invited to detect fraud more quickly, to block them or to prevent them by removing the majority of strong authentication exemptions, and finally to process the simplest files at their level.
