Ombud Council AR 2026

PART B: PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

effective oversight and timely intervention where employers fail to comply with their contribution obligations. Ombud data on this trend supports work being done by the FSCA and other stakeholders to strengthen enforcement, oversight, and consumer education initiatives to protect fund members from these unconscionable practices. • Office of the Ombud for Financial Services Providers (FAIS Ombud) The FAIS Ombud saw a decrease of 11.1% of total complaints opened, when compared to the previous reporting period, attributable to strong encouragement to financial services providers to resolve complaints directly. Long-term insurance, primarily comprising funeral policy complaints, accounted for the highest number of complaints handled by the FAIS Ombud. This was followed by investment and forex-related complaints. Funeral policy complaints remained a notable feature of the complaints landscape, with a significant number of these relating to unauthorised or unlicensed providers and other concerns arising from the sale and administration of these products. Funeral complaints also represented a significant proportion of complaints handled by the NFO’s Life Division, as reported below, indicating a recurring theme across the financial ombud system. Funeral-related complaints across schemes highlights a broader conduct risk concern, particularly where consumers are exposed to unauthorised providers and may experience difficulty obtaining the benefits for which they have paid. The Ombud Council has engaged with the FSCA on opportunities to support initiatives to identify and mitigate conduct risks in the funeral insurance sector, drawing on complaints data and the experiences of the financial ombud schemes. • National Financial Ombud (NFO) Banking Division Fraud-related complaints are a persistent and increasingly significant concern, with vishing, smishing and phishing continuing to be prevalent. In addition, emerging tactics such as spoofed bank numbers, malware-enabled applications, online scams and fraud involving ‘card not present’ transactions were recorded. The trends highlight increasing consumer vulnerability where fraudsters manipulate financial customers to disclose confidential information which then allows the fraudster to gain access to accounts or authorise fraudulent transactions. Complaints data provides an important source of information for identifying changing fraud methodologies and areas where consumer protection, authentication, customer communication and institutional controls may require strengthening. As indicated

elsewhere in this report, the Council has identified digital banking fraud as an emerging financial sector conduct risk and has facilitated engagement between the NFO and the FSCA on opportunities to strengthen responses to this risk. Other notable causes of complaints to the Banking division included credit-related complaints about affordability assessments, refusal of credit and debt collection practices; banking conduct and service complaints; vehicle asset finance complaints regarding repossession processes, forced surrender and improper legal procedures. The top three complaint categories per bank product were current accounts, savings accounts and personal loans. The NFO continues to collaborate closely with banks to recommend and encourage process improvements, which have in several cases been accepted by the banks. Credit Division (Non-bank credit) The most complained about products within the Credit Division included store cards and store accounts. Complaints related to value-added services, reversals of charges, service issues, prescription, fraud, and allegations that accounts had been settled. In addition, personal loan complaints were driven mostly by prescription disputes, allegations of reckless lending, outstanding balances, collections and disagreements concerning contractual interpretation and statements of account. Complaints about account defaults with telecommunications providers relate to contractual terms, payment allocation, overcharging, paid-up letters and failures to update credit bureau records. Debt counselling complaints fall outside the financial ombud jurisdiction and are referred to the NCR. However the persistence of debt counselling-related complaints having an impact on consumers experiencing financial distress, remains an important conduct risk area. As discussed further in section 2.2.1 and section 4.2.1 of this report, the Council therefore despite this jurisdictional gap, facilitated engagement between the NFO and the NCR to support the NCR’s risk mitigation efforts in this area. Although traditional credit and contractual disputes remain prevalent, fraud, unauthorised transactions and service related complaints have become significant causes of

credit-related disputes. Life Insurance Division

Funeral insurance continues to be the most complained about product and accounted for 46.2% of complaints finalised. This was followed by life policies at 33.9% and disability benefits at 7.4%. Declined claims remained the leading cause of complaints overall, particularly in

Ombud Council 2025/26 Annual Report

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