Ombud Council AR 2026

PART A: GENERAL INFORMATION

Regulator, respectively, to provide structured input into regulatory responses to digital banking fraud, unlawful debt counsellor activity, and financial intermediary misconduct. These insights were enabled by ongoing refinement of the Council’s complaint data-reporting framework, through which schemes submit streamlined, comparable complaints data to the Council, which are then shared with regulators, the National Treasury and the Minister of Finance. On the legislative reform front, the Council is part of a National Treasury-led technical team that is developing legislative proposals to implement the reforms in its policy statement “A Simpler, Stronger, Financial Sector Ombud System”. The Council has been instrumental in helping the technical team prepare draft legislation and carry out initial targeted consultations with ombud system stakeholders. Other successes under the reform programme included ongoing improvements in the alignment and coordination of ombud scheme processes, particularly between the National Financial Ombud Scheme (NFO), now in its third year of successful operation as a consolidated industry ombud scheme, and the FAIS Ombud, making the ombud system easier for consumers to navigate; and finalising Ombud Council Rules for the Pension Funds Adjudicator. Administration The Council would not have been able to deliver the above public-facing programmes without robust governance frameworks and effective internal operations. Notable deliverables for the year included the approval and implementation of a fully integrated Governance, Risk and Compliance framework, supported by a comprehensive suite of policies and documented operating procedures and internal controls spanning all key operations. The effectiveness of these measures was evidenced by a programme of internal audits yielding no material findings and the achievement of a clean external audit for the third successive year since the Council’s inception. All posts on the Council’s small staff structure were filled shortly before the start of the year, and we remained at targeted headcount throughout 2025/26, with employment equity targets fully achieved. A Human Capital strategy is in place, underpinned by a fit-for-purpose remuneration

and benefits model and fully implemented performance management and staff development policies and processes. Overall progress I am proud to report that the Council achieved 94% of the aggregate targeted output indicators in our Annual Performance Plan for 2025/26. The journey was not all plain sailing. Protracted legislative levy approval processes, outside the Council’s control, meant that our levy income could only begin to flow in the last quarter of the financial year. However, re-sequencing several planned core deliverables to the last quarter and careful cash management ensured that all but one of our annual APP targets were met despite the liquidity constraint. The strategic project to conduct a consumer awareness baseline study could not be achieved and has been held over to the new financial year. In November 2025, Parliament’s Standing Committee on Finance (SCOF) published its Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report responding to National Treasury entities’ Annual Reports for financial year 2024 / 2025. The report contains several recommendations regarding steps the Council should take, in partnership with regulators and ombud schemes, to enhance the effectiveness of the ombud system. The SCOF recommendations in the main relate to consolidation and accessibility of the ombud system; collaboration with schemes and regulators to strengthen trend monitoring and systemic risk identification; and consumer awareness of the ombud system. The Council was gratified to note that Parliament’s expectations of how we should implement our mandate are strongly aligned with our strategic focus areas and performance plans and welcomes the SCOF’s recommendations, which we are working on implementing. I am confident that, over and above achieving the specific targets in our APP, the Council kept the broader aims in our Vision and Mission statements firmly in focus. At the close of this first phase of our five-year Strategic Plan, I believe this Annual Report evidences meaningful progress toward our longer-term goals and that we are taking steady strides toward an increasingly visible, accessible, effective, and trusted financial sector ombud system.

Ombud Council 2025/26 Annual Report

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