Switzerland: Complaints Notice

Who may complain, and how

A client, a former client, a prospective client or a counterparty of the Switzerland entity may complain. A complaint may be made to the relationship manager, to the head of the office in Zürich, or directly to compliance@iguako.tech, and no route ranks above another. There is no form to complete. It helps if the complaint states the entity concerned, the mandate or account reference, what happened, when it happened and what outcome is sought. A complaint may be made in any language the local office works in, and the reply is written in the same language.

The deadlines the firm holds itself to

A complaint is recorded on the day it arrives and given a reference number the client can quote. A written acknowledgement follows within three business days. The investigation is carried out by a compliance officer who had no part in the matter complained of, which in a small office means an officer from another location. A full written reply is sent within 28 calendar days. Where the matter cannot be concluded in that time, the client is told what remains outstanding and why, and a final reply follows no later than day 56. Those deadlines run from receipt rather than from allocation, and they apply to Switzerland complaints exactly as they apply everywhere else in the network.

Redress and the route beyond the firm

Where the firm was wrong it says so, corrects the position and pays what is owed. Redress above US$25,000 is approved by the Group Complaints Officer and above US$250,000 by the Compliance & Conduct Committee, so the size of a payment never decides whether a complaint is upheld. The final reply states what was decided, on what evidence, and what the client can do next.

Affiliation to a recognised ombuds office is a condition of doing business here, and a client is told of that route at the start of the relationship rather than at the end of an argument. The office repeats the route in its final reply, with the address of the ombuds office and the period within which a client may go there. The procedure costs the client nothing. The group standard of thirty calendar days for a final reply applies in full, and a complaint about a custodian rather than about the firm is taken up by the office with that custodian on the family behalf and tracked to a close.

Using a route outside the firm does not change the terms on which the client deals with IGUAKO Capital (Schweiz) AG, and the file stays open until the client confirms that the matter is closed.

What the firm does with what it learns

Every complaint sits in one register, whatever the division or the domicile, and the Europe regional compliance officer reviews the entries for the offices in the region each month. Local boards receive the same figures monthly and the Compliance & Conduct Committee receives them quarterly, reported by ageing and outcome rather than by volume alone. Twice a year the firm runs a root-cause review that names an owner and a completion date for every cause it finds. Internal Audit samples closed files once a year and reports to the Audit Committee.

The firm counts complaints rather than discouraging them, and it treats one complaint upheld as cheaper than the same failure repeated across a region. A client who is dissatisfied with the reply may ask for it to be reviewed by a person who has not seen the file, and that request is always granted.