萬國法律事務所

Taiwan’s Financial Consumer Protection Act, which has been passed to protect the rights of financial consumers’, will come into force at the end of 2011. The new law will provide a fair, reasonable, efficient financial dispute resolution mechanism, and is established to help make market development healthier and increase consumer confidence.

Under the new law, consumers who purchase financial products or services and then raise disputes with the sellers will be able to resolve such disputes pursuant to the following steps:

(1) Bring a complaint against the seller, forcing the seller to offer a resolution of the dispute in 30 days, and deliver the same;

(2) Where the resolution is not acceptable or not offered in the 30-day period, the consumer may file for resolution using the financial dispute resolution mechanism;

(3) The dispute resolution mechanism may facilitate negotiation so as to help both parties reach a settlement, and if the settlement can not be reached, the mechanism will evaluate the complaint. If the evaluation is accepted by all parties, the mechanism will send the results to a court for the approval, and the accepted results approved by the court will have the same legal effect as of a civil judgment. If consumers are unwilling to accept the evaluation results, they may appeal the same to the courts.

The law stipulates that the mechanism can charge a resolution fee from the sellers. According to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), the fee standard will be NT$ 2,000 to NT$ 10,000. However, this standard has not yet been decided. The FSC is still trying to reach an agreement with financial firms.