The UAE Banks Federation (UBF), a professional body representing 48 member banks operating in the emirates, has announced that it has secured support of the Central Bank for its initiative which aims to develop a unified framework for handling complaints of bank customers in the country.

"The proposed framework was developed as part of UBF’s continued efforts to enhance customer experience and bring higher levels of transparency and efficiency in addressing the concerns of bank customers in the UAE," remarked Abdulaziz Al Ghurair, the chairman of UBF.
 
"The Central Bank’s blessing of the framework paves the way for the country-wide implementation of this landmark initiative which comes in line with global best practices and in order to ensure that customers concerns, rights and interests are well taken care of and protected," remarked Al Ghurair.

As an expression of its commitment to customer’s  satisfaction and happiness and to ensure consistent service excellence, UBF has unveiled its ‘Service Promise’ for bank complaints handling, which is designed as a guideline for UAE banks to follow in responding to complaints from customers.

The ‘Service Promise’ is a set of guidelines for conduct which sets standards of good banking practice for UAE banks to observe when dealing with complaints from customers. While the ‘Service Promise’ is not a legislation, member banks have agreed to adopt and honor the obligations the Promise sets out.

It is built around five guiding principles – transparency, fairness, empathy, reliability, and accessibility – which the Federation views as core to daily banking operations and the care with which customer complaints need to be addressed.

It lays out clear definitions and processes that banks in the UAE are expected to follow in accepting, communicating and resolving complaints from customers.

"The purpose of the ‘Service Promise’ is to upgrade the quality of service that banks customers, across the UAE, will receive when they file a complaint about a product or service," stated Al Ghurair.

"Through providing a set of guidelines and adequate quality assurance to customers, the ‘Service Promise’ will raise industry standards and ensure standardised processes and experiences across banks, and so help encourage consumer confidence in the banking industry," he added.-TradeArabia News Service