The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is introducing the proactively settled category to the way it processes cases to encourage firms to solve complaints more quickly.
The regulator confirmed the move will be a trial for the 2023/24 financial year following an industry consultation which will see it report cases as proactively settled where certain criteria is met.
The change follows a similar initiative launched in November 2021, which led to around 100 businesses making 7,000 offers to resolve complaints more quickly.
The key difference from the previous consultation and implementation is this initiative only applies to new cases with the service.
Last month, the regulator proposed the change – suggesting the adding of new category within its biannual business-specific complaints data to recognise firms which resolve issues before a formal investigation has begun.
Any complaint resolved by a fair and reasonable offer put forward by a business within 14 days of the FOS requesting the respondent business’s complaints file would be recorded under the new proactively settled category.
This would not affect the firm’s uphold rate which the FOS said was a significant motivating factor for many organisations.
At the time, FOS said it believed by setting a time limit for offers to be considered as proactively settled would drive good behaviour from businesses in providing timely responses.
It added it also believed this would incentivise financial businesses to settle complaints proactively and pragmatically at an earlier stage, which in turn would help to bring closure to affected complainants.