information for businesses covered by the ombudsman service
our voluntary jurisdiction
I've heard the ombudsman service has a voluntary jurisdiction for certain complaints that aren't automatically covered by the ombudsman by law. Where can I find out more about this?
After public consultation, we opened our "voluntary jurisdiction" to allow businesses to sign up with us for certain types of complaint not otherwise covered by our compulsory jurisdiction.
Businesses are not required by law to join our voluntary jurisdiction. But in doing so, they formally agree to deal with complaints – and comply with our decisions – in the same way as under our compulsory jurisdiction.
Businesses that have signed up to join our voluntary jurisdiction by contractual agreement include:
- Banks and general insurance companies – based in Europe and not regulated by the FSA – dealing predominantly with consumers in the UK. These companies have been able to join our voluntary jurisdiction from March 2002.
- Investment companies – based in Europe and not regulated by the FSA – dealing predominantly with consumers in the UK. These companies have been able to join our voluntary jurisdiction from April 2008.
- Mortgage and insurance intermediaries that wanted to be covered by the ombudsman before they became regulated by law by the FSA (at which point they were covered automatically by our compulsory jurisdiction). We opened our voluntary jurisdiction to these firms in April 2003.
- Certain firms regulated by the FSA from 1 December 2001 (the date called "N2") that were not members of one of our predecessor ombudsman schemes but wanted to be covered by us for complaints about events that happened before "N2". We opened our voluntary jurisdiction to these firms in April 2003.
- National Savings & Investments (NS&I) – following the statutory abolition of the former Independent Adjudicator for National Savings & Investments. Since 1 September 2005 we have covered complaints about NS&I products, so these complaints are dealt with using the same rules and approach that we apply to complaints about other financial products.
- PayPal (from 2 July 2007)
- Post Office Ltd - for disputes relating to foreign exchange and postal orders (from 1 February 2008)
Businesses thinking about signing up to our voluntary jurisdiction will need to consider the rules and requirements that apply. You will probably want to contact our technical advice desk for further information.