However, what mechanisms exist to protect your rights if the bank or financial institution does not fulfills agreements? Let's consider further.

Let's imagine a situation when you agreed with a financial institution on the special conditions of your case and the bank confirmed that it can meet all your requirements, after the specified time you did not get the desired result, and the institution continues to charge you the cost of monthly service. What shall I do?

First of all, we would advise you to conduct all communication with the bank in writing, this will help to record all agreements and be exactly on the same page. Write down in detail which conditions are critical for your business and be sure to agree on the payment terms for opening an account. In addition to correspondence with the bank, we would advise you to fix all conditions in the contract as well.

Thus, if the financial institution does not fulfill its obligations, you will be able to refer to the terms of the contract or the agreements that were in the correspondence with the managers.

Based on our practice, most disagreements with financial institutions can and should be resolved through negotiations with managers.

This method really is the most effective, and here's why.

One of my acquaintances worked in the back office of a Ukrainian bank and one of her duties was to reverse transactions. And it seems that everything is fine, at first glance, but there is one "but": these transactions were for one kopeck, ten kopecks, hryvnia, that is, for insignificant amounts. Imagine that a hundred unsatisfied customers storm the bank branch every day, take up the managers' time, expressing dissatisfaction and demanding a penny back. It is much more profitable for the bank to return this penny, because it will save the time of its staff, and therefore the money of the bank itself.

And of course, we would advise you exactly this conflict resolution mechanism, as the fastest and most economical for all parties of the process. Firstly, the bank manager is already familiar with the details of your case, and secondly, he knows all the peculiarities of the financial institution from the inside, and thirdly, most likely, you have already communicated with him, so you have already established a certain interpersonal contact.

If it is not possible to reach the manager, and he ignores all previous agreements, you can try to establish a dialogue with the director of the institution, but the chances of getting an answer are even smaller than the chances of resolving the situation with the manager.

If all of the above does not work, you cannot come to an agreement with the manager, and the bank management does not respond, then you can always contact the regulatory body that issued the license. In each country, the functions of such a body are performed by a specific institution. For example, in Latvia,  the Financial and Capital Investment Commission of Latvia (Finanšu un kapitalia tirgus komisija vai FKTK), in Lithuania - the National Bank of Lithuania (Lietuvos bankas), in Sweden - the Financial Supervisory Service of Sweden (Finansinspektionen or FI) performs the functions of a financial regulator.