The report, published last week, was written by the Personal Finance Research Centre at the University of Bristol. It was set up to examine whether the FOS was achieving its mandate, “to resolve individual disputes between consumers and financial services firms fairly, reasonably, quickly and informally.”
Chris Cummings, director of AMI, commented: “Considering the rapid rate of growth of the organisation, from eight to over 700 staff in the blink of an eye, it has done well to maintain a quality service.”
He added that despite more consumers than ever before appealing to the ombudsman, 62 per cent of cases were still ruled in favour of financial institutions. “People cannot simply try to play the system,” he said.
This view was echoed by John Ellis, head of public affairs at the association for financial services professionals the LIA. He said: “I think the FOS does a good job on the whole. If all the cases it deals with had to go to court it would cost us all a fortune.”
Mark Evans, managing director of mortgage services at the Lighthouse Group said: “This report should give the industry confidence as we move towards regulation.”
FOS press officer David Cresswell commented: “We were keen to obtain an independent assessment of our organisation, as there is no other model to which we can compare ourselves.”
