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.

Complaint Outcomes

When you bring a complaint to the FSPO, there may be a number of outcomes.

Informal Mediation

The FSPO deals with a majority of complaints informally through mediation in our Dispute Resolution Service. Mediation is a process where we aim to help you and your provider to design and agree a solution you are both satisfied with.

The outcomes of mediation are:

  • A settlement agreed between you and your provider.
  • Clarification from your provider around the issue(s) you complained about, which solves your complaint.
  • No settlement agreed and your complaint transfers to investigation.

Formal Investigation

Where a complaint is formally investigated, the Ombudsman issues a decision that is legally binding on both parties, subject only to an appeal to the High Court.

The outcomes of legally binding decisions that are issued by the Ombudsman are:

  • Partially upheld
  • Substantially upheld
  • Upheld
  • Not upheld

You can read more about Legally Binding Decisions and read anonymised decisions from our decisions database.

For more information on the compensation that may be directed by the Ombudsman in a legally binding decision, and other redress, read our page on 'Compensation and other redress'.