Download The Defender is launching bank and insurance companies testing

The Defender is launching bank and insurance companies testing.
The elderly cannot be denied financial services just for their age, yet the Defender
encounters such cases. That is why he has launched an inquiry of accessibility of
financial products to the elderly which will also include testing on bank branches
using undercover assistants.
In 2012 and 2013 there was an increase in the number of complaints from the elderly
regarding inaccessibility of some financial products due to their age. The elderly point
to the fact that the financial institutions set certain age limits for some products which
then prevent elderly clients from being able to get them. The most frequent denials of
applications in banks encountered by the elderly relate to the issuance of credit cards
although they may be long-standing clients, gold payment card holders or solvent
clients having both Czech koruna as well as foreign currency accounts. A typical
reason for the application for issuance of a credit card was a stay abroad with the
intention of renting a car there which requires a person to produce a credit card. The
age barrier in banks was also encountered by the elderly in cases of various loan or
credit applications. In insurance companies the alleged discrimination refers
especially to life insurance, accident insurance and travel insurance which were
provided to the elderly under considerably disadvantageous conditions, sometimes
even with a 100 per cent surcharge.
The Public Defender of Rights is aware that there may be reasons which justify the
use of some age limits in particular cases. Banks are also obliged by law to proceed
with caution, to refrain from business activities which might harm the interests of
savers of threaten the bank's stability. They are just as well not allowed to enter into
contracts which would be “conspicuously disadvantageous” for the bank or those
which would oblige the bank to economically unjustified performance. On the other
hand, however, it is also true that financial services are offered and provided to the
clients and they fall under the consumer protection regulation and the ban on
discrimination. Therefore in general it applies that the elderly are equally entitled to
participate in social life, to use means obtained from loans to finance their needs,
have the right to take out insurance and the like, just as the clients from any other
age bracket.
Given that the issue of possible age discrimination in terms of access to services has
not been systematically mapped in the Czech Republic yet, the Public Defender of
Rights decided to carry out an across-the-board research which would examine the
accessibility of financial products to elderly clients. The research will take place from
June to August of this year. The results will be published in September.
The first part of the research will be carried out in the form of an anonymous
questionnaire survey. The Defender will address all banks and foreign bank
branches, all insurance companies and branches of foreign insurance companies
and selected non-bank providers of financial services. In the second part of the
research a method of situation testing with the objective of checking the accessibility
of financial services to the elderly in practice will be take place. This way the
procedures of thirteen key banks in the Czech market oriented on small clients, two
insurance companies and four non-bank institutions will be examined.
Within the situation testing a selected company will be visited or otherwise addressed
by an undercover assistant filing an application for the issuance of a credit card or a
short-term consumer loan, in cases of insurance companies it will be travel
insurance. The selected branches will be distributed across the entire territory of the
Czech Republic.
The goal of the research is not to evaluate the practice of individual financial
institutions for the purpose of their sanctioning. It is a systematic check of equal
treatment of the applicants for financial services and verification of the fact if the
elderly as an age group are discriminated against without legitimate reasons in terms
of their consumer rights. The data on the entities in question will therefore remain
anonymous. The resulting report should serve as the basis for a broader discussion
on the quality of provision of financial services to consumers.
The research has got official support of the Czech National Bank, the Czech Trade
Inspection Authority, the Financial Arbiter, the Czech Banking Association, the Czech
Association of Insurance Companies and the Czech Leasing and Finance
Association.