We share our knowledge and experience of handling financial disputes to help businesses resolve complaints fairly and effectively.
This page gives an overview of how financial businesses should handle a complaint from a customer and shares some resources to help you settle complaints early on.
1. Follow the FCA's complaint handling rules
If a customer has a complaint about your business, you should try to resolve it as soon as possible.
We won’t usually consider a complaint against your business until you’ve had the opportunity to look into it first.
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 complaint-handling process.
The rules that set out how businesses should handle complaints are published in the Dispute Resolution (DISP) section of the FCA handbook.
2. Handling customer complaints
Good complaint handling can repair a relationship, build confidence in financial services, and help customers understand your financial products.
When handling complaints, your business should:
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send the customer a prompt written acknowledgment or a summary resolution communication (if the complaint can be resolved within 3 business days)
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keep the customer reasonably informed about the progress of their complaint
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send the customer a final response
As part of investigating the complaint, it’s good to check that:
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you understand the customer’s complaint
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you’ve thought about your responsibilities to the customer
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you’ve considered the relevant requirements and regulations, including the Consumer Duty.
If we’re asked to look into a complaint, we might ask you about these things.
Time limits apply that set out how long you have to resolve a complaint.
3. Tell your customer about us
If you can’t resolve the complaint within 3 business days, you’ll need to send a full written response to your customer.
Your final response should:
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summarise the complaint
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be open in acknowledging any mistakes made
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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
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tell the customer they have the right to complain to the ombudsman service within six months of the final response
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indicate whether or not your business is happy to waive the relevant time limits (using the wording in DISP 1 Annex 3R)
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include our contact details, a link to our website and a copy of our leaflet .
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 if you:
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send a final response to the customer
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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.
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