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Founded in 1996 by the banks, it was intended to review complaints by small business against the chartered banks but its authority was later expanded to cover consumer complaints.

After Harold H. MacKay produced his report in 1998 on ways to reform the financial services industry, a main recommendation was the need for stronger consumer protection against the powerful banks. Thus, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada was born but its powers were limited to breaches of the law; redress was to be provided through the ombuds service.

By all accounts, it was a contentious issue. Banks had been handling customer oversight for decades and resolving client matters privately without airing dirty laundry in public.

In 2002, brokers, credit unions, mutual funds and other financial firms were forced to join OBSI by their self-regulatory bodies. Participation for the banks remained voluntary.

From the start, at least from the industry’s point of view, OBSI was never intended to be a whistleblower. Its mandate was to review individual complaints and make recommendations. So if a bank or broker charged a fee it hadn’t disclosed or couldn’t explain, for example, OBSI resolved the one dispute.

Consider that four billion customer transactions flow through the six largest Canadian banks each year, or nearly eight thousand every minute of every day. Given such a huge volume of transactions, the complexity involved and the effort of creating, implementing and distributing these products, mistakes on a large scale aren’t out of the question.