The Research On Introducing Financial Ombudsman Mediation Mechanism In China

The most typical characteristic of financial services are monopolistic and professional, which leads to the status of financial service providers and financial consumers unequal. Thus, when a dispute comes, how to relieve the rights of financial consumers is a prominent issue, especially under the financial crisis. However, the traditional dispute resolutions, such as litigation, arbitration and mediation, could not satisfy the needs of financial consumers, and it is necessary to establish a new financial consumer dispute resolution mechanism.This paper aims to build a new financial consumer dispute resolution mechanism in China. Based on the experience of Financial Ombudsman in the UK and Taiwan, and the research on the reports of international organizations, such as the World Bank, the paper points out it is necessary and feasible to establish a Financial Ombudsman in China. Financial Ombudsman Services is a dispute resolution which inclined to protect financial consumers with “unilateral compulsory jurisdiction” and “unilateral binding effect”. As a new mechanism, it plays an important role in reshaping financial consumer’s confidence and has become a model for other countries. Taiwan has formally modeled to establish the Financial Ombudsman Institution, and it provides some good experience and lessons for our country.When building our financial ombudsman mediation mechanism, there are some basic principles. For example, it should be coordinated with the existing system, the procedure should be easily accessed to, and the rights should be tilt protected.Moreover, the Financial Ombudsman mediation mode should be a separated one in order to coordinate with our supervision system, the dispute settlement body can be set up in the financial industry associations, and the legal effect should focus on “unilateral compulsory jurisdiction” and “unilateral binding effect”.