Before we get involved

All businesses regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) must follow complaint-handling rules. These require each business to have in place and to follow an effective, clear complaints-handling process. Under the rules, businesses must:

• have processes for handling complaints fairly and promptly
• publish a summary of their in-house complaint handling process
• refer in writing to the availability of this summary at (or immediately after) the point of sale or the point of first contact with the customer
• give this information in writing to customers when requested and when acknowledging a complaint

When handling complaints, your business should:

• send the customer a prompt written acknowledgment or a summary resolution communication (if the complaint can be resolved within 3 business days)
• keep the customer reasonably informed about the progress of their complaint
• send the customer a final response

You must use this procedure to deal with any customer complaint.

You can find a detailed explanation of how businesses should handle complaints in the “Dispute resolution: complaints” section of the FCA handbook.

If you’re able to resolve the complaint (and your customer has told you they accept your response) within 3 business days of receiving it, you can send what’s known as a summary resolution communication.

This is a response to your customer which must:

• refer to the fact that a complaint has been made
• say that you think the complaint has now been resolved
• tell them they can refer their complaint to the ombudsman service if they’re not satisfied with the outcome
• indicate whether or not your business is happy to waive the relevant time limits (using the wording in DISP 1 Annex 3R)
• provide the Financial Ombudsman’s website address and explain that more information is available on our website

You don’t have to explain whether your business accepts or rejects the complaint, or include a copy of our leaflet.

If your business can’t resolve the complaint within 3 business days, you’ll need to send a full written response to your customer’s complaint.

Your final response should:

• summarise the complaint
• be open in acknowledging any mistakes made,
• give details of whether you accept the complaint and want to offer redress to settle, with a clear explanation of how you decided on that offer, or say you do not accept the complaint, with your reasons 
• tell the customer they have the right to complain to the ombudsman service within six months of the final response
• indicate whether or not your business is happy to waive the relevant time limits (using the wording in DISP 1 Annex 3R) 
• include our contact details, a link to our website and a copy of our leaflet

It’s important to include all this information in your final response letter. If your customer then refers their complaint to us, we’ll normally use this letter as a starting point to look into the case.

For most complaints about payment services, you have 15 days to resolve the complaint. In exceptional circumstances, you have up to 35 days, but you’ll still need to respond within 15 days to tell the customer when you’ll reply fully.

You have up to 8 weeks to resolve all other complaints. The time you have to resolve a complaint starts from the date it is received anywhere in your business.

Customers might complain to you in a number of ways, so it’s important to make sure all relevant staff know how the complaints procedure works.

The complaint-handling rules set time limits for customer who want to bring a complaint to us.

These time limits are:  

• 6 months from your business sending a final response or summary resolution communication to the person who complained 
• 6 years from the event being complained about (or, if later, three years from when your customer knew – or ought reasonably to have known, they had cause to complain)

After these time limits have passed, we’ll need your consent to look into a complaint.

In your final response letter or summary resolution communication, you need to refer to these time limits and say whether you will (or won’t) consent to the ombudsman looking at the complaint if your customer complains late. If you agree to waive the time limits, you can’t withdraw your consent later on.

Your complaint-handling process should explain that if a complaint is not resolved, your customer may be able to refer the complaint to us. It’s important for customers to be aware they can come to us if they need to.

Our consumer leaflet

Under the complaint-handling rules you must send out our consumer leaflet, “Want to take your complaint further?”, if you:

• send a final response to the customer
• are not in a position to send your final response and have run out of time to do so

You can order supplies of the leaflet online. You must not send customers photocopies of our consumer leaflet or hard-copy print-outs of it from our website.

If a customer has referred their complaint to you by email, you may prefer to email them a link to the version of our consumer leaflet on our website – rather than posting them a printed version. In this case, you should still remind the customer that you can post a hard-copy of the leaflet to them on request.

Our logo

We can provide copies of our logo in a number of formats – you can email your request to us and we’ll explain what you need to do beforehand.

For example, we'll ask you to agree to our terms and copyright conditions when reproducing our logo, including agreeing to use it in a context that's clear, appropriate and not misleading.

Our Business Support Hub is a free service for businesses. You can contact the Business Support Hub for general information on complaint-handling, including informal advice on what the Financial Ombudsman’s approach is likely to be on different types of complaint.

Find out how to contact the Business Support Hub.