With a solid foundation of experience in dispute resolution, a growing caseload and an expanding list of participating firms, OBSI continued in 2008 to evolve towards our vision of becoming Canada’s premier dispute resolution service.

A year ago, I reported on the conclusion of discussions with the federal government and provincial regulators that resulted in the Framework for Collaboration. That document sets out our vital role in consumer protection in financial services, the support of governments and regulators for OBSI and provides a set of standards that we are expected to meet. At the same time, we concluded a successful external review of OBSI that found our service both effective and professional.

Perhaps the most significant achievement of the past year was the approval of the revised Terms of Reference (PDF, 123 Kb), the document that defines the powers and scope of the Ombudsman. The revisions expand our mandate by providing a process to handle systemic, or widespread, issues that our staff encounters in the course of their reviews of complaints. We have also adapted the complaint-handling rules being introduced this year by the investment self-regulatory organizations to improve communications and timeliness in participant firm complaint handling. These changes have addressed the recommendations of our external reviewer as well as meet the guidelines set out in the Framework for Collaboration.

We still face the challenge of the lack of consumer awareness of our services. We recently commissioned a Canada-wide consumer survey and found not only low awareness of OBSI, but also that few people who had an unresolved complaint with their banking services or investments said they had been made aware of OBSI by their firm. While the new complainthandling rules should help raise consumer awareness, more needs to be done. This continues to be a priority of the Board.

In a year marked by progress and growth, we regret to report that one of our founding member institutions, Royal Bank of Canada, withdrew from OBSI shortly after the passage of our revised Terms of Reference. We have encouraged the federal government to respond as we believe this challenges the integrity of the dispute resolution system that it helped create in 1996 as the Canadian Banking Ombudsman, renewed in 2002 when we became OBSI and endorsed in 2007 with its adoption of the Framework for Collaboration.

My thanks to my colleague directors of the Board of OBSI whose commitment to our work has served Canadian consumers and the financial sector well in the past year. And my thanks go as well to the staff of OBSI. The integrity and fairness of our service rests in large part on their shoulders, and we appreciate their dedication.

The coming year promises to be challenging. Sadly, troubled economic times usually mean a significant increase in our work. Nonetheless, that’s why we’re here: to provide an independent, impartial perspective on unresolved disputes in good times and bad. Our team is up to the job.

Dr. Peggy-Anne Brown CHAIR