Canada’s Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI) has published its strategic plan for the next five years, which outlines its key priorities.

Read: OBSI continues push for binding awards powers

Between now and 2021, OBSI says it will focus on four core strategic directions. Those are:

  1. Become the dispute resolution provider of choice. OBSI will deliver quality and accessible service to consumers and participating firms by leveraging its expertise and knowledge to increase insights to stakeholders and expand service offerings.
  2. Build relationships through stakeholder awareness of its value. OBSI will strengthen regulator, firm and consumer trust as well as value and brand awareness through demonstrations of value and service effectiveness.
  3. Aim for improvement and organizational resiliency. OBSI will maintain and increase service excellence by standardizing and improving processes and service times.
  4. Invest in OBSI’s people. OBSI will focus on staff and management collaboration and dialogue, and succession planning and professional development. It will also enhance internal knowledge management capabilities to strengthen employee engagement.

For each core strategy, OBSI lists short-term and medium-term initiatives it hopes to address. Some examples are below.

  • When it comes to delivering quality service, OBSI wants to explore alternatives to naming and shaming in the next one to two years, and get feedback via surveys from firms and consumers. Over the next two to five years, the organization wants to build on its services and “execute [an] external review for banking and implement key recommendations.”
  • When it comes to continual improvement and resiliency, OBSI wants to establish clear benchmarks and best practices for investigative processes in the next couple years and then, in the next two to five years, automate the intake systems for complaints as well as “standardize processes across investment and banking investigations, including implementing process improvements identified from [the] delay data review process.”

“We expect to do that not only by resolving disputes effectively, but by helping to reduce them as well,” says OBSI Ombudsman and CEO Sarah Bradley. “We have a greater role to play by sharing information about our experience, the trends we see, and emerging issues with firms, consumers and regulators.”

Read the full plan.

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