The Net1 Groups' newly appointed independent adjudicator, advocate Neville Melville, today unveiled customer service charters which will govern how the company deals with complaints and disputes going forward. The new charters were announced at a media roundtable in Johannesburg today.
As the independent adjudicator Melville explained that his key function will be to provide an additional level of assurance to Net1's complaints management process. He will also advise the company on how to optimise the process.
The newly drafted customer service charters for four of Net1's subsidiaries; Moneyline Financial Services, Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), Smart Life Products and EasyPay Everywhere will aid in executing these tasks, Melville says.
He was appointed by the Net1 board as an independent ombudsman in June to oversee the company's complaints process following numerous complaints particularly with regards to CPS' distribution of social grants.
Net1 subsidiary CPS distributes 22 million monthly payments to more than 10 million social grant recipients. It has been under fire for alleged profiteering during its invalid contract with the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA). In March the ConCourt permitted the extension of the contract for another 12 months in order to avert a social payments disaster and ensure millions of beneficiaries received payments.
CPS also faced allegations it authorised deductions on beneficiaries' accounts before their social grants were paid out. Net1 has refuted these claims, saying CPS does not share any personal beneficiary data with its other subsidiaries, or sell financial services and products to recipients.
As an independent adjudicator Melville will report directly to the chairman of the Net1 board. He will also liaise regularly with Net1's two major institutional investors - The International Finance Corporation and Allan Gray.
"My office will be a place for members of the public who feel aggrieved, but have not known where to turn to in the past, to come to for help. I have been empowered to receive complaints from grant recipients, capture them electronically, seek any outstanding information necessary for a decision and settle complaints by way of conciliation, mediation, fact finding or a decision which is binding on Net1 but not the complainant," Mellville says.
Melville has decades of experience in dispute resolution and has assisted various ombudsman offices in South Africa and other African countries to set up operations, training their staff members, compiling manuals, reviewing their processes and conducting research. Previously he served as the consumer goods and services ombudsman. He also has extensive experience in the consumer protection field, having previously served as ombudsman for banking services for seven years.
He believes the decision to appoint him and to grant him "untrammelled access to customer complaints" shows that Net1 has placed complaint management on the front burner.
"Unlike regular financial ombuds' offices I will not be dependent on reports from complaints managers but will have direct access to Net1's complaints management system. I think this speaks to their commitment to transparency and accountability when it comes to the complaints process," he says.
Speaking on the controversy around alleged illegal deductions from grant recipients accounts, Melville told journalists he believes that there is a need to educate the public and improve financial literacy.
"The financial services industry has placed huge importance on banking the unbanked in recent times but has failed them in many respects. While they have created a new market they have not educated them or provided them with sufficient information for them to protect themselves.
"Financial literacy must be the responsibility of all of us in financial services. By teaching communities how to protect their financial information we can ensure that things like this do not happen in the future," Melville says.
His initial contract ends in March 2018 and he says he will report on monthly basis to the chairman of the Net1 board. The reports will be made public, including any recommendations he makes.
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