Important information: The service provided by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman is free of charge. We will never seek payment from you to progress a complaint.

Customer Service

The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO) is an independent, fair, and impartial service that helps resolve complaints with pension providers and regulated financial services providers. Our aim is to provide the highest quality of service to all customers. The following documents will assist in explaining how we operate and what standards of service you should expect when dealing with our Office.

Customer Charter

The purpose of this customer charter is to outline the standard of service and behaviour which should underpin our interactions with our customers.

Customer Action Plan

Our aim is to provide the highest quality of service to all customers. The Customer Action Plan, describes our policy of encouraging feedback from customers, evaluating that feedback and, where possible, continuously improving on the quality of service offered.

Customer Engagement Policy

This policy sets out how the FSPO will engage with our customers and other stakeholders and expresses our aim to foster an environment of mutual respect between team members in the FSPO and those we serve.

Complaints about our own Services

You may make a customer service complaint to us if our service falls short of what you consider acceptable. All complaints will be dealt with promptly and in an objective and courteous manner. When you're making a complaint about our service, please tell us:

  • the name of the team member you are complaining about
  • relevant dates and times
  • what happened - describe the incident or problem
  • details of any phone conversations, letters and meetings that caused the complaint.

How to complain about our service

Please contact our Customer Service Unit. You can contact us:

Complaints about our service that we can and cannot consider

We can consider complaints about the standard of service we provide. This includes promptness, politeness and professionalism.

You may complain about the way we have handled a complaint against a pension provider or financial service provider, but not about its outcome.

We cannot comment on the facts or outcome of a complaint investigation against a pension provider or financial service provider. This includes the outcome of mediation, or the Ombudsman's decisions and determinations about:

  • whether we look into a complaint about the conduct of financial service provider or pension provider
  • whether to uphold, substantially uphold, partially uphold, or reject a complaint
  • what compensation to direct, if any.

How we will respond to a complaint about our service

  • We will investigate complaints fairly and impartially.
  • Your complaint will be investigated by a different team from the one whose service you are complaining about.
  • We will log your complaint and acknowledge receipt within 3 working days.
  • We aim to complete our investigation within 20 working days. If that is not possible, we will keep you updated of our progress.
  • -Customer Engagement Policy
  • -Complaints About Our Own Services