Hanfa publishes its annual publication on consumer complaints for 2024
The Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (Hanfa) has published its fifth annual edition of the Financial Services Users’ Complaints, providing a detailed overview of the complaints received and the related activities of Hanfa in 2024.
During 2024, Hanfa received 214 complaints, which is a record high since 2016 and almost 40 more than the annual average in that period. Consumer complaints are an important source of information on citizens’ experiences with financial services and a tool to monitor the level of consumer protection. They are also used by Hanfa to initiate supervisory activities, issue recommendations and inform the public.
The largest number of complaints continued to concern the area of insurance (as many as 56%), the most frequent topics being compulsory motor vehicle liability insurance and comprehensive vehicle insurance, the validity of claims and the amount of compensation, and the insurers’ claims handling procedure. They were followed by claims regarding entities outside Hanfa’s scope of competence (24%), such as banks or debt purchase companies, and complaints relating to the capital market (11%) and leasing market (3%).
Hanfa also pointed to an increase in the number of citizens complaining about online fraud and suspicious investment offers, often by unregulated entities abusing Hanfa's identity. During the year, numerous warnings and educational texts were published to further protect the public.
Based on the complaints received, Hanfa noted certain shortcomings (41 cases) in supervised entities’ conduct, most often in the insurance segment, taking them into account in its supervisory activities and when issuing recommendations for the improvement of business practices.
The publication also includes data on the total number of complaints received broken down by financial services sectors, topics presenting the most common causes of the complaints, supervisory and educational activities undertaken by Hanfa, recommendations issued and normative changes in favour of consumers.
This publication points to Hanfa’s continued mission of strengthening confidence in the financial market and protecting the collective interests of financial services’ users, thus promoting the transparency and legality of the operations of the entities it supervises.
The publication in Croatian is available here.
