PIRG knocks banking Ombudsman

The recent appointment of Judy Chang as the Banking Ombudsman has been knocked by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). The post of Ombudsman was established on May 19. The Ombudsman will look at complaints which have already passed through the commercial banks’ complaint system but will not be dealing with general pricing of products, level of interest rates and granting of credit and other risk management policies. A media release from PIRG’s Chairman Trevor Hosten over the weekend, stated that Chang is not far enough removed from the banking system. Instead, Hosten said, the PIRG would have preferred an attorney, who had spent the majority of his or her professional life successfully defending consumers and ex-bank employees against banking misfeasance.