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| BFSO is a free and independent dispute resolution service. We consider complaints about banks and their affiliates operating in Australia. Non-bank members and their affiliates can also apply to join our scheme. If you wish to enquire about membership, please send your details to enquiries@bfso.org.au and we will contact you.
The Ombudsman is able to investigate disputes and make decisions that are binding on the financial services provider.
Can we help with your dispute?
The Ombudsman’s powers are set out in the Terms of Reference. As a general rule, we can consider your dispute if:
- It is about a financial service provided by a member bank or an affiliate;
- You are an individual or a small business; and
- The amount of loss you claim is less than $280,000.
There are some types of disputes that we are unable to consider. These are set out in the Terms of Reference and include disputes about general policies such as interest rates, fees and branch closures.
Use our Jurisdiction Checker to work out whether your dispute is within our jurisdiction.
Getting Started
We want to help you resolve your dispute directly with your financial services provider. So we encourage you to telephone your service provider’s customer relations department to give it the opportunity to resolve the dispute to your satisfaction. Click on the following link for the contact details of your financial institution’s customer relations department.
How to Lodge a Dispute
If the dispute remains unresolved, you may lodge a dispute with our office by using our Online Dispute Form, or by writing to us.
What happens after we receive your dispute?
After we receive your letter or your complaint form, we will write to you and confirm whether we can consider your dispute. If we cannot assist you, we may refer you to another organisation that can.
If we can consider the dispute, we will send a copy of your letter or dispute form to your financial services provider. A representative from that organisation may contact you to try to resolve the dispute.
What must the financial services provider do?
The financial services provider has 30 days to respond to your dispute. Sometimes, the provider may ask for longer than 30 days, particularly if you have raised a complex matter or if there is a problem locating relevant documents.
What happens if the dispute is unresolved?
If the dispute is not resolved, then we will investigate the issues raised. Because we have a very high caseload, there may be a delay before your case is allocated to a case manager. The investigation process itself can also be time consuming.
What happens when an investigation is completed?
If the dispute is not resolved during the investigation process, the case manager will write to you and the financial services provider stating how he or she thinks the case should be resolved. This is called a “Finding”.
Both you and the bank may accept or reject the Finding. If either of you reject the Finding, the case will be referred to the Ombudsman who may make a formal Recommendation about how the dispute should be resolved.
You may accept or reject a Recommendation. However, if you reject it, we will not be able to assist you further.
If you accept the Recommendation, but the service provider does not, then the Ombudsman may issue a Determination, which is binding on the service provider.
Conciliation Conferences
Another method of resolving a dispute is a conciliation conference which is attended by the disputant, the service provider and the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman decides which cases are appropriate for a conference.
Click on the following link to view a diagram of the Dispute Resolution Process.
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