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Information for professional representatives

Are you representing a customer who is unhappy with something a financial business has done?

On this page, you’ll find guidance for professional representatives about referring a complaint to us for investigation. You’ll also see links to the complaint form you must use – as well as to other resources and useful information.

On this page

  1. When a customer appoints you
  2. Check the customer has complained to the financial business
  3. Prepare your case
  4. Complete our online form for professional representatives
  5. Work with us while we investigate
  6. Respond promptly to decisions

Complaining on behalf of a relative or friend?

See our information for consumers and use our customer complaint form.

When a customer appoints you

If a customer chooses you to represent them, before you contact us on their behalf, you must:

  • carry out effective due diligence before you refer their complaint
  • check they have filled in the relevant paperwork to appoint you

Check the customer has complained to the financial business

Customers must always complain to a financial business before bringing a complaint to us.

We encourage financial businesses to work with professional representatives. And we urge professional representatives to engage with businesses and give them everything they need to investigate a complaint.

We see good outcomes when businesses and representatives cooperate, which can lead to quicker resolutions.

Prepare your case

Preparing your case well will enable us to assess it more quickly. It will also save you time and resource in the long run, because you won’t have to keep responding to follow-up requests. 

  • Work with your customer to collate and prepare the documentation and evidence as early as possible
  • Check and consider the relevant time limit rules before referring a complaint. Tell us from the start if the complaint falls outside these time limits and whether there were exceptional circumstances why it wasn’t referred in time – if you don’t, you will cause an unnecessary delay. If there aren’t any exceptional circumstances, the complaint should not be referred.
  • Use our website to:
  • Contact our Business Support Hub for guidance on our jurisdiction and approach to complaints.

Complete our online form for professional representatives

You will need to complete the form for each individual customer that you’re representing, rather than for each issue or financial business.

You can do this in three easy steps.

  • Some of the information we request is a ‘required field’. This means you won’t be able to submit the form unless you’ve added the required information.

    So, before starting to complete the form, it may be helpful to have the following to hand:

    • details of the complaint and relevant dates involved – for example, the date of the event being complained about
    • a copy of the financial business’s final response letter
    • a copy of the customer’s signed declaration form

    You will also need to complete a separate checklist if the complaint is about:

    • a fraud, scam or another unauthorised or disputed payment or transaction
    • irresponsible or unaffordable lending

  • Work through the stages in the form. Our online complaint form needs to be completed and submitted in one go. Please complete all the questions and provide as much detail as possible in your answers.

    You won’t be able to save the form part of the way through completion. Don’t close the form until you have fully completed and submitted it. If you do, you will lose the stage you’re at and the information you have added so far.

  • When you’ve completed the form, press the submit button at the bottom of the page.

    You will receive email confirmation that you have successfully submitted the form and any attachments.

Use our complaint form

Work with us while we investigate

We value your cooperation as we work to resolve cases. You can help us progress individual cases more efficiently by working with us

If we have to make follow-up requests or chase for information, it slows down our investigation. So, if we don’t hear from you by a specified deadline, we may decide – or even close – a case based on the information we have.

Respond promptly to decisions

You must respond to provisional and final decisions from our ombudsmen promptly. Early responses allow us to progress complaints more efficiently and help customers more quickly.

Your customer has the right to refer the case to an ombudsman if they don’t agree with our investigator's view of what a fair and reasonable outcome should be. If that happens, you must set out clearly set out why they disagree, including with regard to:

If a business has been asked to pay redress, you should raise any questions about payment with them first.