All hot and bothered, almost

Customer service took on a new meaning recently at the FSB when they sent out the renewal notices and invoices for the 2007 levies for registered FSPs.

One reader received an invoice that showed a hefty increase in the 2007 levies he was due to pay - nearly 200%, in fact.

FAnews investigated and it turns out that there was an error which occurred in the download process between the FAIS database and their finance system. This led to at least one of our readers being incorrectly classified, and wrongly invoiced.

We also spoke to Gerry Anderson, deputy registrar of financial services providers at the FSB, who explains that the increase in the annual FAIS FSB levies invoiced in October 2005 compared to that invoiced at the beginning of November 2006 were, increased on average less than 10% in total.

There was the base amount for all FSP's at R1500 for 2005 (excluding VAT), compared with R1597 for 2006 and the additional amount payable per representative increased from R250 to R267.
 
Anderson explains the leap in levies for the FAIS Ombud. What should be borne in mind is that it came from an extremely small base, and it did show a bigger increase, as the 2005 income was underestimated.

The base amount increase here was from R300 to R342, whilst the amount per representative increased from R100 to R113. 

So each registered FSP is in for an invoice of an average of R1939, and if one considers that there were 13 511 licenced FSPs, that means the FSB budgeted income for 2007 should be in region of R26.19m. We have excluded all the representatives.
 
Editor's thoughts:
* The increases mentioned by the FSB are average increases, which implies that that some FSP will be invoiced more and other less. 

* What this incident has highlighted once again was that clients - in this case the FSPs - need to check invoices and satisfy themselves that these are accurate. In much the same way that you expect your clients to check the details.

* A feather in the cap of the FSB is that they responded as quickly as they did.

* On the other hand it has created a bit of a bad taste and one of the lessons in good customer service is that you ensure that invoices are correct prior to being dispatched, because nothing irritates a client more than being invoiced incorrectly.