Regulatory disclosure and the Irish financial services ombudsman (Pre-published version)

Abstract

This study investigates the effectiveness regulatory disclosure, specifically the power to name and shame persistently offending financial service providers (FSPs) in its annual reports awarded to the Irish Financial Services Ombudsman (FSO) in 2013. The existing literature on ombudsmen focuses mainly on the global spread of the ombudsman concept since the 1960s but is largely silent on the effectiveness of financial ombudsmen. As the first country to award its financial ombudsman name and shame powers, Ireland represents a novel setting in which to test the impact of regulatory disclosure by an FSO on the behaviour of FSPs. Our results show that the number of complaints lodged against FSPs dropped precipitously in its immediate aftermath (in a comparison of means test p < 0.01) and, following a one-year lag, so did the percentage of complaints lodge that proceeded to a full investigation and finding (in a comparison of means test p = 0.07). This study argues that despite international scepticism on the efficacy of name and shame strategies, the experience of the Irish FSO suggests that regulatory disclosure had considerable impact in shaping the preferences of FSPs and improving the effectiveness of the FSO.