If, as a private
investor, you should make a complaint and it fails
to achieve a satisfactory result within eight
weeks, you have access to the Financial Ombudsman
Service (FOS), an independent organization with
statutory powers to address and settle individual
disputes between consumers and financial services
companies. The service is financed by a levy on
financial institutions.
The FOS is effectively an alternative to the court
system. It may use mediation or adjudication to
resolve an issue. In the year to 31 March 2005,
the FOS investigated 110,963 cases, of which two-thirds
were on mortgage endowments, and it gave 55 per
cent of them to guided mediation, 39 per cent
to formal adjudication and 7 per cent to a final
decision by the Ombudsman. The length of time
a case takes to resolve depends on its complexity,
but six months is usually long enough, according
to an FOS spokesperson.
In early 2005, the FOS and the FSA issued a joint
consultation. They agreed to make existing complaints
procedures transparent and to make access to experts
more formally available.
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