On 23 September 2024, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) published a speech given by its Chief Executive and Chief Ombudsman, Abby Thomas at the StepChange Connected 2024 conference.
In her speech Abby Thomas discusses the role of the FOS and in particular, what it sees in complaints that involve credit and debt.
Key points in the speech include:
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In the year ending March 2024, the FOS more than halved the average time that customers had to wait for a resolution to their complaint, compared to two years ago, while at the same time improving the quality scores.
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The FOS received over 18,000 complaints about credit cards in the first three months of this financial year. The vast majority of those - well over 15,000 - were about irresponsible and unaffordable lending.
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The FOS has seen a considerable increase in complaints involving irresponsible lending across banking and consumer credit - it received over 20,000 cases this first quarter, up from a little under 5,500 cases for the