The power to settle financial complaints.
The power to settle financial complaints.
This section answers a number of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) about:
other than handling individual disputes, does the ombudsman ever talk to businesses and trade associations to find out what we think?
Every year we take part in over a hundred events where we meet the businesses we cover. These events range from roadshows and seminars to conferences and exhibitions – and take place the length and breadth of the UK.
This involves our meeting thousands of financial services practitioners face-to-face – to listen to your views and answer your questions. Upcoming events where you can come and meet us are listed on the "events" pages of this website.
We dedicate a significant amount of resource to keeping in touch with all sectors of the financial services industry. We recognise that many of the businesses we cover only ever have a few, if any complaints referred to us, so would otherwise have no direct contact with the ombudsman service.
If you get together with other businesses from your area or take part in local trade-association meetings – and would like us to come along – we will see if we can help you. For more details please see "external liaison - what we can do for you".
You can also contact our technical advice desk for information about a wide range of issues. Don't wait until a consumer has made an official complaint, before you get in touch with us. By contacting our technical advice desk to talk through what looks like becoming a tricky situation, you may be able to sort out the problem informally at an early stage – saving time, money and effort all round.
As well as our contact with businesses and their trade associations at an operational level, we also have more formal arrangements in place for strategic dialogue with the financial services industry.
Following a review in 2009/2010 of the way we communicate formally with the industry, these liaison arrangements take the form of a high-level industry steering-group and a wider cross-sector industry panel.
Our chairman, Sir Christopher Kelly, chairs the high-level steering group which includes the following senior executives of key financial services institutions:
Members from this group meet to discuss strategic issues such as major trends in complaints and the mechanisms for handling “mass claims” from consumers. Notes and minutes relating to these meetings are available below:
The wider cross-sector industry panel comprises around 200 financial services practitioners and officials from 30 trade bodies.
The panel covers issues such as complaints involving a particular product, sector, or type of financial business – or particular complaints-handling process issues.
The industry panel keeps in touch with ombudsman-related issues through a fortnightly email newsletter and a series of events including meet the ombudsman "Q&A" sessions.