A record number of 251 cases were submitted to the Arbiter for Financial Services in 2024, continuing the upward trend of the past two years, according to the Arbiter for Financial Services Annual Reports for 2024.
Across all the main sectors of financial services, the largest volume of grievances concerned "Savings/Current/Term Accounts" (66 complaints), followed by "Life-related" products (60) and "Crypto/Virtual Financial Assets" (31). The issues most often raised involved "Value at maturity" (56), "General admin./ customer service" (38), and "Suspected irregular activity" (34), a statement by the office of the Arbiter said.
"The Arbiter issued 94 final decisions in 2024, with 51 cases (54%) not upheld, 36 cases (38%) partially upheld, and seven cases (7%) fully upheld. Compensation amounts varied, with the highest recorded at £118,295.60, though most awards ranged between €1,000 and €5,000. Only seven cases proceeded to appeal. Mediation proved particularly effective in 2024, with agreements reached during mediation accounting for over half (59) of the cases resolved at the mediation stage. This represents a substantial increase from 2023, when these agreements represented only about a third (22) of similar cases."
Alfred Mifsud, Arbiter for Financial Services, remarked: "What is particularly very impressive is the fact that there has been a substantial increase in complaints which have been resolved without actually coming to me for adjudication because we have increased the resources of our mediation services, and many cases are being resolved through mediation." The average time from acceptance to closure for mediated cases was 88.7 days, approximately 27 days faster than the previous year."
"What is particularly disturbing is the growth of cases relating to fraud, and particularly the quality of the fraud. We are seeing cases which involve a lot of euros, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of euros. The scammers are getting more creative; I would say scamming has become, for them, an industry," the Arbiter observed.
"Apart from applying a transparent, structured model to assign responsibility in authorised push payment scam cases, ensuring that both provider and consumer conduct were duly considered, the Arbiter also issued another technical note with guidance on determining complaints related to relationship-based scams (often referred to as 'pig butchering')," the statement continued.
"We have widened the law which regulates our operation, obviously through a parliamentary process, which gives us a wider audience of complaints that we can hear and entertain. With the new provisions of the law, which come into effect as from 1 October 2025, the Arbiter will be able to hear complaints even from, for example, commercial clients, whereas before the law restricted us to hearing only from personal consumers or very small microenterprises," Mifsud added.
The Office of the Arbiter for Financial Services said it actively engaged with the public through various awareness campaigns focused on payment scams and other relevant financial services products and services. Aside from issuing a triannual newsletter, the Office is active on social media every Friday. On LinkedIn, a summary of a decision of the Arbiter is published, while 'lessons learnt' drawn from such decisions are published in English and Maltese on Facebook. The Annual Report 2024 is available from the Arbiter for Financial Services website financialarbiter.org.mt