Ombudsman News 182

Abby Thomas, our Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman, recently gave a keynote speech at the Consumer Duty Implementation Summit, organised by City & Financial Global.

 Abby spoke about the Financial Ombudsman Service’s role in the consumer protection landscape and discussed how we’re ready to look at complaints involving the Consumer Duty.

 Read more about the speech and our preparation for the Consumer Duty.

Our annual complaints data and insight is a review of our work over the past financial year.

It includes the volume of complaints we received and the proportion of complaints we upheld. We also share sector-by-sector insight into trends in complaints.

Our annual complaints data shows the number of fraud and scams cases we received increased by almost a fifth in 2022/23 financial year, compared to the previous year. Over half of these complaints were about authorised push payment (APP) scams.

 We’re also seeing an increase in complaints that feature more than one type of scam. ‘Hybrid’ scams are now common in romance scams, purchase scams, and ‘safe account’ scams. 

The FCA has recently announced changes to its rulebook to support the implementation of the Government’s Mortgage Charter.

 We are able to investigate complaints involving mortgages and financial difficulty and have guidance on our website for both customers and financial businesses about making a complaint and our approach to the complaints we see.

Our latest blog outlines some of the questions insurers ask our Business Support Hub about escape of water claims in unoccupied properties and sets out some key issues to help you determine fair and reasonable outcomes.