Response to consultation on Guidelines on complaints handling by credit servicers under CSD
Consultation question: Is there a reason why the requirements on complaints handling for credit servicers under Directive (EU) 2021/2167 should differ from the ones in the existing JC Guidelines on complaints handling that are applicable to other financial institutions across the banking, Investment and insurance sectors?
We welcome the initiative of the ESAs to extend the applicability of the complaints handling guidelines to servicers under CSD. However, we do not think that the scope of applicability of the guidelines is sufficient to achieve the goal of the ESAs.
Indeed, between the initial CSD draft and final CSD text, the scope of the text has been limited to NPL sales, carving out the servicing of non-NPL loans (such as non-NPL securitizations). By extending their guidelines to CDS servicers alone, the ESAs will maintain the exclusion of non-NPL servicers from the scope of the guidelines.
We are not sure that this limited extension will answer the goal expressed by the ESAs in their Rationale: "It will also enhance the protection of consumers irrespective of the provider with whom they conclude the credit agreement".
However, we understand that if the ESAs extended the complaints handling guidelines to non-regulated servicers, the part of the guidelines referring to supervisory reporting could not be applied to these.