The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided against expanding the eligibility threshold for the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) beyond businesses with a turnover of £6.5m.
The move follows the regulator’s assessment exploring whether changes needed to be made to allow larger SMEs access to the Ombudsman service.
Currently, SMEs can access the Ombudsman service if they have a turnover of less than £6.5m and fewer than 50 employees, or a balance sheet total of less than £5m.
These thresholds cover 99% of the UK’s 5.6 million private sector businesses.
The FCA said it has decided that this level of coverage “remains appropriate” and that “it would not be proportionate to extend access to SMEs larger than the current criteria”.
In 2018, the FCA made rules extending access to the Ombudsman Service for more SMEs. The rules have been effective from 1 April 2019.
At that time, the regulator revealed it would review the impact of the rules and would launched a review with a call for input in March 2023.
The FCA said it wanted to understand if the eligibility criteria for SMEs to be able to refer complaints to the Ombudsman Service remain appropriate to its policy objective.
The objective is to provide access to the Ombudsman Service for SMEs that are unlikely to have sufficient resources to resolve disputes with financial services firms through the legal system.