Concerns over the Financial Ombudsman Service's (FOS) proposed new terms of reference (TOR) has prompted a significant number of submissions from within the financial services industry.
FOS, through management consulting practice The Navigator Company, has received around 30 submissions questioning the TOR.
"It's a significant number of submissions," The Navigator Company director Phil Khoury told InvestorDaily.
"Clearly jurisdictional limits is a hot topic, monetary limits and the types of disputes that will be admitted," he said.
"The third area, which drives most of the comment, is in making a single term of reference. Of the existing sectors there is a number of different practices and different limits that apply and people are having to come to grips with what that will mean in their context."
The firm was accepting and reviewing industry submissions until 20 May and will provide recommendations to FOS's board when it meets on 28 May, Khoury said.
There are two examples of FOS's existing and proposed jurisdiction that are most concerning, according to Mark Halsey, principal of Perth-based financial services law firm Halsey Legal Services.
The first is that the FOS is prepared to make determinations against AFS licensees regarding complaints relating to matters that are not included in the definition of financial services under either the Corporations Act 2001 definition or under the ASIC Act 2001 definition, Halsey said.
The second is that the Financial Industry Complaints Services (FICS) and now FOS have adopted the FICS rules, allowing FOS to hear complaints from non-retail clients.
"It must logically lead to a broader range of potential claims against AFS licensees than those contemplated by the parliament, and hence a cost burden on the industry at the worst possible time. We do not see any justification or political mandate to impose such a burden on AFS licensees," he said.
