Financial Ombudsman Service

The Financial Ombudsman Service (‘the FOS’) is an independent dispute resolution service for individuals and small business holders. Access to the FOS is free and it has proved to be an effective forum for people with certain types of complaints.

The FOS can generally hear disputes if:

There are some types of disputes which the FOS is unable to consider, including commercial judgments and policies about fees, interest rates and branch closures. The FOS can only consider disputes about financial services provided by banks and non-bank members who are members of the FOS scheme. Other non-bank owned finance companies, credit unions, building societies and mortgage originators do not fall within the FOS's jurisdiction, but may be covered by other schemes: see Complaints about Credit Unions.

Further information about the types of disputes the FOS can consider is available on the BFSO website and in their terms of reference.

The FOS may investigate a complaint and attempt to resolve it by negotiating between the financial services provider and customer. If this fails, the FOS may recommend a solution for the parties to consider. If this also fails, the FOS may make an award of up to $280,000. If the customer accepts the award, it is binding on the financial services provider, and the customer loses the right to have the dispute heard by a court. However, should customers choose not to accept the award, the financial services provider cannot enforce the award. The customer may then proceed to have his/her case decided by a court.