'We finished a review of the naming mechanism this month, and our aim is to speed up the naming process,' council chief executive Connie Lau Yin-hing said yesterday.

The watchdog originally considered naming companies case by case. But decided, as a general rule, they should be warned before being named so they had time to correct their errors. Only those that showed no improvement would have their names publicised.

Yet the council's good intentions were abused. 'Some companies refused to meet us, or tried to delay meetings, saying their bosses were away,' Lau said.

To tackle the problem, the council decided it would now send written warnings to firms if they refused face-to-face talks. Other measures are also in place, but it did not elaborate, citing them as internal guidelines.

Those who apply for assistance from the Consumer Legal Action Fund, which helps consumers fight court cases, can also expect to see their applications go through quickly. A review of the fund, set up more than a decade ago, was finished last year.

Three cases involving Lehman Brothers Minibonds have started the litigation process.

News of the reviewed mechanisms came as the council announced a drop in the number of complaints it received last year. It handled 29,048 cases in 2010, a decrease of 15 per cent from 2009.

Economic revival and increased public awareness about financial products, after the Lehman Brothers incident, reduced the number of complaints on banking and financial services by 85 per cent to 742 cases, council chairman Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung said.

In contrast, a series of yoga club closures led to a big increase of 68 per cent in complaints against health and yoga clubs. A total of 862 cases were received last year, among them 330 were related to the closure of yoga centres. There were only six complaints against closures of health and yoga clubs in 2009.

Nevertheless, the council believed the worst was over. Future closures would also have a smaller impact after the Monetary Authority issued new guidelines warning credit card users on pre-payments, Cheung said.

If people used credit cards to pay instalments, service providers were now required to warn them the arrangement would constitute a loan agreement between the clients and their banks. Customers might not get a refund even in the face of closures.

Business failures were unavoidable, but 'the main problem lies with some sectors where prepaid services are common', Cheung said.

The council welcomed the government's proposal of establishing a week-long cooling-off period.