Banking and payments
If you have a complaint about a business that provides banking and payment services, such as a bank, building society or payment transfer company – we can help.
If you’ve been affected by a fraud or scam, we share information about how we resolve complaints about fraud and scams.
How we handle complaints about banking and payments
We see a variety of complaints from consumers about banking and payment services, for example current accounts or regular payments like direct debits, or where an IT problem has meant consumers can’t access their accounts. We look at the facts and circumstances of each individual complaint. We listen impartially to both you and the business when deciding what's fair and reasonable in the circumstances.
We follow rules the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has set out for us. We also take into account the law, as well as the rules, regulations and codes of practice in place at the time things went wrong.
Other things we take into account include:
- whether – and how – the business has tried to reach a solution with you
- the terms and conditions of your account
- what the business has done to support you if you’re in financial difficulty
Once we’ve considered everything, we’ll set out our findings, explaining whether we think the business has treated you fairly, or not. If we think the business has treated you unfairly, we’ll set out what we think needs to be done to put things right.
Complaints we see
Find out more about the types of complaint we get about banking and payments, and how we might be able to help.
Information about Nationwide's Fairer Share Payment scheme
Read our news update to find out more about our role and what to do if you have a complaint.
Bringing your complaint to us
Our service is free and easy to use.
When you bring a complaint to us about a pension, it's our job to weigh up all the facts. We’ll make a decision about what happened using evidence from you, the financial business and any relevant third parties. We'll also consider:
- the relevant law
- any regulations that applied at the time
- any industry codes of conduct that were in force at the time
When we've finished investigating, we’ll tell you whether we think the business treated you fairly or not. And we’ll explain how we reached our decision.
If we think the business treated you unfairly, we'll tell them to put you back where you'd be if they hadn't made a mistake. We might also ask them to make an award for any distress and inconvenience caused.
How long it takes
In general, for most types of banking complaint, it takes about one month for us to allocate cases. It can sometimes take longer, depending on what your complaint is about. Complaints about fraud and scams take about one month to allocate.
We’re working hard to reduce the time it takes to allocate cases for investigation, so you may hear from us sooner than this.
- Find out more about when you can expect to hear from us once we’ve started to investigate your complaint.
- If you’re facing financial hardship or severe ill health, please let us know.
- If you’re experiencing financial difficulties, you may also find the Money Advice Service website useful, it contains a list of online debt advice services where you can get immediate and personalised help.
