Referring to Article 21 of the Finance Companies Control Law, issued by Royal Decree No. M/51 dated 13/8/1433 AH, which states: "SAMA supervises financial companies and exercises its powers according to the provisions of this Law and its regulations," and in the interest of SAMA to ensure fair dealings and protect the rights of customers and financial companies.

Financial companies are required to adhere to the following regulations:

1. Create an independent department named "Customer Care Department" by a decision from the Board of Directors. This department should report directly to the CEO or General Manager or their deputy and must not be administratively linked to any other department, particularly not to the legal or regulatory departments.
2. Provide the Customer Care Department with sufficient authority, financial, technical, and human resources to perform its duties effectively.
3. The company must employ a suitable number of staff based on its activity, branches, number of customers, and the volume of complaints received against the company.
4. The company must obtain written non-objection letter from SAMA when appointing the Director of the Customer Care Department.
5. The Director of the Customer Care Department and all department staff must possess adequate knowledge and experience in finance and customer service. The company must continuously train them through relevant training programs suitable for their roles.

   6.  The department is responsible for the care of the company’s customers, ensuring they are treated fairly and             transparently at all stages of their interaction with the company, and ensuring they receive appropriate                   services and products smoothly, easily, and with high quality. This includes:

• Ensuring that the company’s departments comply with procedures related to customers in accordance with the regulations and instructions issued by SAMA that govern the relationship between the company and its customers.
• Developing an internal policy to protect customer rights throughout all stages of their interaction with the company (For example: marketing and sales procedures, post-sale service quality assurance procedures, complaint handling procedures, customer communication procedures).
• Handling customer complaints and inquiries received directly by the company or through SAMA’s channels, in accordance with relevant regulations and instructions.
• Monitoring market developments and understanding customer priorities and behaviors to ensure the continuous improvement of the company’s services and products to meet changing needs of the customers.
• Ensuring ongoing development of front-line employees’ knowledge of the company’s products and services through relevant training programs and information from the concerned departments.

7. Ensuring the availability of multiple channels for receiving customer complaints and inquiries, allowing them to contact the company easily and conveniently at their preferred times, obtain the required information, track their complaints, and be provided with a specific contact reference when submitting a complaint.
8. The administration must have technical systems that support the acceptance and documentation of the receipt and tracking of complaint processing, including date, time, and details of recipients and handlers of each complaint, allowing for the monitoring of the complaint status and actions taken. These systems should also support direct automatic integration with any databases created by SAMA for regulatory purposes.
9. The company must enable customers to assess their satisfaction with the complaint handling results, and this must be documented in the automated system.
10. The administration must develop a working mechanism with the relevant departments, including service level agreements and an escalation process to ensure complaints are addressed within regulatory timeframes. This mechanism should be implemented technically, and adherence by departments should be measured.
11. The administration must develop a policy for analyzing complaints and their patterns, addressing their causes and sources. The administration should document these reports and measure their effectiveness in addressing the sources of recurring complaints.
12. The administration must provide the CEO, general manager, or their direct deputy with a monthly report on the nature of received complaints, the actions taken regarding them, and the level of customer satisfaction with the outcome of complaints resolution. Additionally, a report should be prepared to measure the effectiveness of all customer-related procedures (Example: customer waiting times in company branches or on the phone). The administration must also prepare quarterly reports on complaints expected to be referred to court and submit them to the Risk Committee.
13. The administration must be subject to review and audit by the Internal Audit Department and the Compliance Department on a semi-annual basis to ensure the accuracy of the provided data.
14. These guidelines are considered the minimum requirements for the company’s customer care practices. The company must continuously develop its internal procedures in this regard, aligning them with the nature and scale of its business and with the best local and international standards and practices.
15. SAMA emphasizes that companies must immediately start taking the necessary actions to ensure full compliance with the directives outlined in this circular, no later than 1 November 2018. SAMA will take all regulatory measures against financing companies that do not meet the requirements specified in this circular.