THE Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) is proposing new standards that would force banks and other deposit-taking institutions to treat customer complaints as board-level risk issues, with tracking numbers, named complaints officers, 45-business-day final responses and quarterly reports to the central bank.

Set out in an April 7 consultation paper, the measures would require institutions to acknowledge complaints within five business days, retain complaint records for at least 15 years, and submit board-approved implementation plans within six months after the final standards are issued. Failure to comply with a supervisory direction arising from breaches of the 2016 Banking Services Code of Conduct could lead to a fixed penalty of $7.5 million per breach.

The standards were prepared by the central bank and the Financial Services Commission through a joint market conduct and consumer protection working group. They come after a year in which BOJ’s Office of Consumer Complaints received 443 complaints, down from 463 in 2024, while the preliminary resolution rate rose to 84 per cent from 57.4 per cent.