The Financial Commission (FinaCom PLC) received a record of 1,012 complaints in fiscal 2019, even as the amount it recovered for broker member customers fell slightly from a year earlier.
According to its latest annual report, the self-regulator made progress across some of its key business drivers. Specifically, the number of new complaints rose seven percent year-over-year as a record $7.4 million sought by traders in 2019, up from $3,184,932 in 2018.
Likewise, the number of resolved complaints in “clients favor” increased 17 percent to 179, up from 153 the previous year. The commission also ruled in favor of its broker members in 451 cases it assessed, up from 373 in 2018.
Overall, the commission awarded 4X more in compensation for “trading related” disputes while doubled Payments for “financial related” cases, it said in its annual enforcement report.
Other highlights also show the amount of total compensations awarded to broker member clients in 2019 moderated to $602,924 from $784,380 in 2018, and more than halved from $1,564,700 in 2017. Further, the average timeframe of resolving the complaint improved by nearly 14 percent to 6.77 days from 7.9 days in 2018.
A total of 13 new members joined the Financial Commission
FinaCom said the decrease in average dispute resolution time reflects the speedy processing during a period of record numbers of processed complaints and the complexity of submitted cases.
Elsewhere, the Commission remained steadfast in improving its core business in 2019 with the launch of additional services for broker members. Among other things, the organization launched a new tool to help cryptocurrency investors check if an investment opportunity is a scam. Dubbed ‘Blockchain Warning List,’ the service provides information about the potentially damaging behavior of certain digital asset providers.
The most recent entries in this list include crypto exchanges and wallets suspected of conducting illegal activities depending on reports and complaints filed by their customers.
Accordingly, Financial Commissions managed to expand its membership ranks with eight new members, as well as five trading technology certifications, including Collective investment technology certification for PAMM and copy trading service providers. During the year, many of the existing members upgraded their category of membership to A level.
