Impact of Securities Firm Virtual Asset System Failures... 128,000 Financial Complaints Filed Last Year

Last year, the number of financial complaints filed with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) approached 130,000. This was mainly due to a roughly 65% year-on-year surge in complaints within the financial investment sector, following issues such as system failures in securities firms’ virtual asset services.

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According to the "2025 Financial Complaints and Consultation Trends" report released by the FSS on the 21st, a total of 128,419 financial complaints were submitted to the FSS last year, marking a 10.4% increase from the previous year’s 116,338 cases.

Bank-related complaints totaled 21,596, down 10.2% from the previous year. This decrease is attributed to a base effect, as complaints had temporarily surged the year before due to incomplete sales of Hong Kong H Index (Hang Seng China Enterprises Index, HSCEI) equity-linked securities (ELS).

However, complaints related to voice phishing soared by 125.7% (2,423 cases) year-on-year. When analyzing the proportion of bank-sector complaints by type, voice phishing accounted for 20.1%, the second highest after credit (33.3%).

Complaints from small businesses and low-income consumers amounted to 28,942, a 2.9% decrease year-on-year. Among these, complaints against credit card companies fell by 2.4% to 12,661. This decrease was not significant compared to the previous year, when complaints had surged due to settlement delays involving Tmon and Wemakeprice (Tmapf incident).

Financial investment complaints totaled 14,944, a 65.4% (5,908 cases) year-on-year increase, making it the sector with the highest growth rate in complaints. The sharp rise was largely due to a 1,014.4% (4,088 cases) increase in virtual asset-related complaints. In particular, complaints were concentrated on issues such as the non-payment of first trade reward event benefits at a specific virtual asset exchange’s API (Application Programming Interface).

Complaints in other sectors also increased, with asset management seeing a 68.6% (249 cases) rise and securities up 26.9% (1,615 cases).

Insurance company complaints also showed an upward trend. Life insurance company complaints reached 14,656, up 12% (1,571 cases) year-on-year, mainly concerning insurance claim calculation and payout (30.2%, 804 cases) and coverage determination (18.7%, 344 cases). Non-life insurance company complaints totaled 48,281, a 19.6% (7,916 cases) increase. Complaints rose in all categories, including claim calculation and payment (14%, 3,135 cases), coverage determination (49.4%, 1,893 cases), and insurance solicitation (14.9%, 263 cases).

Among all complaints, general complaints increased by 16.4% year-on-year to 84,240, while dispute-related complaints rose by 18.2% to 43,569. The average complaint processing period increased by 5.1 days to 46.6 days, and the acceptance rate for complaints climbed by 1.4 percentage points to 41.3% compared to the previous year.

An FSS official stated, “We will strengthen the functions and roles of the Dispute Mediation Committee and process complaints and disputes more efficiently to accelerate consumer relief. We also plan to enhance the role of Chief Consumer Protection Officers (CCO) at financial companies to promote autonomous consumer relief initiatives.”

Meanwhile, the number of financial consultations last year was tallied at 359,063, up 6.4% year-on-year, while the number of inheritance inquiries rose by 4.8% to 310,738 cases.

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