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