It’s All About the Money. Or Is It? Consumers’ Experiences with the Financial Services Complaints Institute (Kifid) in the Netherlands

The Dutch Financial Services Complaints Institute (Kifid) offers a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to consumers who have a complaint about a financial product or a financial service. Kifid first tries to mediate between the consumer and the financial services provider. If mediation fails, the Arbitration Commission will issue a binding decision. Using a survey among recent Kifid users (N = 506), this paper asks: how do consumers experience the Kifid complaints procedure, and to what effect? This study confirms the general finding from earlier research that procedural justice plays an important role in complaint procedures. The overall Kifid satisfaction level is shaped by both the perception of the process and the outcome of the complaints procedure. Moreover, if consumers experience more procedural justice, they are more willing to accept their Kifid decision. While most previous studies were limited to users’ experiences with ADR in general, this paper distinguishes between two different ADR mechanisms. The results indicate that those consumers whose complaint was solved by mediation experienced more procedural justice than those whose case was settled by arbitration. Moreover, the first group of consumers gives Kifid a (much) better overall score than the second group.