Client complaints and the FAIS Ombud timeline
How long a South African financial services provider has to resolve a complaint before the FAIS Ombud, and the complaint file worth keeping.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Financial services businesses in South Africa
A client phones, unhappy. The retirement annuity they were sold has penalties nobody mentioned, or a policy lapsed because a premium change was never explained. Whether the complaint is fair or not, the clock has started, and what your practice does in the next few weeks decides whether it ends with an apology and a fix or with a determination from the Office of the FAIS Ombud.
Most financial services providers handle the conversation well and the paperwork badly. A complaint answered over the phone, followed up on WhatsApp and settled in a meeting nobody minuted is very hard to defend later. This article sets out the timeline the FAIS Ombud describes, what each side should put in writing, and how to keep a complaint file that would stand up if the matter went further.
The provider gets the first chance
The FAIS Ombud does not take a complaint that has skipped the provider. On its own site, the Office says a complainant must first try to resolve the complaint with the financial services provider, which has six weeks to resolve it.
Six weeks is not long when the facts sit in old records, a product supplier has to be asked for a statement, and the adviser involved has moved on. A workable internal routine:
- Log the complaint on the day it arrives, with the date, the client, the product and the adviser.
- Acknowledge it in writing and tell the client who is handling it.
- Gather the records of the advice and the product: application forms, the record of advice, disclosures and correspondence.
- Decide, and send a written final response that answers each point the client raised.
- File everything in one place, including the final response and proof that it was sent.
The final response matters for a second reason: it starts the client's next clock.
The client's window after your final response
According to the FAIS Ombud, once the client has received the provider's final response, they have six months to submit the complaint to the Ombud. A clear, dated final response therefore helps both sides. The client knows where they stand, and the practice can show exactly when its response was given.
A vague final response ("we regret the inconvenience") helps nobody. Say what you found, what you will do or why you will not, and that the client may take the matter to the FAIS Ombud if they remain dissatisfied.
Put it in writing and keep the proof
The FAIS Ombud recommends that a complainant's attempt to resolve the complaint with the provider be made in writing and that proof of it be kept. That advice is addressed to clients, but it describes what a provider's own file should look like too. If a client complains by phone, send a written summary of the call the same day and ask them to confirm it. If they reply on WhatsApp, save the exchange into the complaint file.
The FAIS Ombud's own site explains this sequence from the client's side, including the time the provider has and the period for bringing the complaint to the Office, and is worth reading so that your letters use the same terms.
Why the outcome carries weight
The FAIS Ombud states that its determination has the effect of a civil judgment of a court. That is the strongest reason to treat a complaint seriously from the first day. A provider facing a determination will be asked what it knew, what it told the client and when. The answer is whatever the file shows, and a thin file leaves the practice relying on memory.
The FSCA or an ombud?
Clients are often unsure where to complain, and it helps to point them in the right direction. The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) describes itself as the regulator that supervises the market conduct of South African financial institutions, with a mandate under section 57 of the Financial Sector Regulation Act, 2017 that includes promoting the fair treatment of financial customers.
The FSCA also says what it does not do. It handles legislation-related complaints about how regulated companies conduct themselves, but it cannot assist with claim disputes and contractual disagreements, which must go to the relevant ombud or the Pension Funds Adjudicator. A dispute about the advice a client received and what it cost them is usually ombud territory.
A complaint file you can produce on request
Achekam's Document Centre gives a financial services business a place to hold each complaint as its own folder, with the documents that support it.
- One folder per complaint. Upload the letters, e-mails, call notes, product statements and the final response. Folders can be uploaded whole, and files can be tagged, renamed, moved, searched and archived when the matter closes.
- Versions kept. If the final response is redrafted, the new version keeps the earlier ones, so the file shows how the response developed.
- A fingerprint on every file. Every stored file gets a SHA-256 fingerprint, and every upload passes a malware check. If a client later disputes what a document said, the fingerprint lets you show whether the copy in the file has changed since it was stored. How that works is set out in showing a filed document has not changed.
- Sharing by link, not attachment. When the client, the product supplier or the Ombud's office needs to see documents, send a personal link by e-mail with an expiry date, an optional one-time code, and download allowed or not. The share can be revoked once it is no longer needed. The same approach for claim paperwork is described in sending claim documents to an insurer by secure link.
Achekam does not decide whether a complaint is valid or draft the final response for you; the people handling the complaint do that. What it gives you is one place where the evidence sits and a record of what was shared, with whom.
Before the next complaint arrives
Write a one-page complaints procedure that names who logs complaints, who responds, and how the six-week period is tracked. Set up a complaint folder template with the subfolders you always need. Then test it on the most recent complaint you handled: could you produce every document and the date of your final response within an hour? If not, that is the gap to close first.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
