Complaints to the Ombudsman fell a third this year. The ones that get through are upheld more often.

On 21st May the Financial Ombudsman Service reported that it took 214,600 complaints in the 2025/26 financial year, down from 305,700 the year before. That is a fall of almost a third. The interim chief ombudsman, James Dipple-Johnstone, framed it plainly: case volumes are returning to historical levels, and the complaints now arriving are "better evidenced and ready to be investigated."

The headline writes itself, and most of the coverage took it: complaints are down, the surge is over, the system is calming. That reading is true and almost useless. The number that matters is buried one sentence further on. New cases from professional representatives fell by more than a third after the Ombudsman started charging them per case, and the cases that still get referred are now more likely to be investigated and upheld.

Read that again. Fewer complaints, and a higher proportion of them win. Those two facts only sit together if the complaints that disappeared were the weak ones.

What the charge actually filtered

For most of the past two years the claims management industry treated the Ombudsman as a conveyor belt. File in bulk, file thin, let the volume do the work, take a cut of whatever lands. Motor finance commission and credit card complaints drove the 2024/25 peak, and a large share arrived through professional representatives who were paid nothing to file and everything to win. The economics rewarded quantity over quality.

The Ombudsman changed the economics. From last year a professional representative pays to bring a case once they pass a low free allowance. A thin, speculative complaint that used to cost the filer nothing now costs them money up front, and a thin complaint is the kind most likely to be dismissed. So the thin ones stopped coming. What is left is the residue of cases that someone judged worth paying to pursue, which correlates closely with cases that have evidence behind them.

This is the part worth sitting with. The uplift in the uphold rate is not the Ombudsman getting more generous. It is the denominator changing. When you stop counting the no-hopers, the average case looks stronger, because the average case is stronger.

Why this is good news if you do your own complaining

The lesson the data hands an individual complainant is the same lesson I have been giving since I started doing this for myself and for the relative I hold a deputyship for. The case has almost always been winnable. The variable was never the law. It was whether the complaint was prepared like it mattered.

Look at two decisions the Ombudsman published on 21st April. In DRN-6297335 a consumer complained that a used car supplied under a CA Auto Finance agreement was not of satisfactory quality. Upheld. In DRN-6046396 a Barclays customer complained that the bank had failed to intervene as he gambled across two accounts. Not upheld. The difference between those outcomes is not that one consumer was wronged and the other was not. It is the weight and specificity of what each could put in front of the ombudsman. A satisfactory-quality claim under section 9 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 lives or dies on the inspection report, the fault log, the timeline. A failure-to-intervene claim lives or dies on whether the pattern of harm was visible to the bank and ignored. One of those is far easier to evidence than the other, and the evidence is what moves the decision.

The filtering effect at the Ombudsman is simply that pattern at scale. The cases that win are the cases that were built to win.

The timing is the opportunity

There is a window here, and it is short. Three things are about to push volume back through the system. The buy-now-pay-later sector comes into Financial Conduct Authority regulation on 15th July, with Consumer Duty obligations and, for the first time, access to the Ombudsman for those borrowers. The motor finance redress scheme remains stuck in litigation: in its statement of 8th May the FCA said hearings are unlikely before October and told lenders to prepare for a possible court decision around mid-November, with an admitted scenario in which there is no scheme at all and consumers have to complain individually. When those dams break, complaint handlers and the Ombudsman get busy again.

Right now they are not. Volumes are at their lowest in two years. A well-built complaint filed in the next few weeks lands on a desk that is not yet buried, against a backdrop where prepared cases are winning at a higher rate than they were. If you have a dispute sitting in a drawer, this is the moment to put it in writing, cite the section, quantify the loss, and set the deadline.

And if your dispute is motor finance, the lesson is sharper still. Do not wait for the scheme. The FCA itself has said there is a version of this where the scheme never arrives. Complain to your lender directly now under the standard complaints process. It is free, it preserves your position, and as the regulator keeps repeating, you do not need a claims management company taking a third of your money to do it.

The Ombudsman's caseload fell a third because the weak cases left. The corollary is the only thing you need to act on: a strong, well-prepared case has rarely had a clearer run.

Also worth your time this week

A short reading list of the other moves that mattered. One line each, source link below.

• Motor finance redress still stuck in court. Four legal challenges now sit against the PS26/3 scheme: three from lenders (CA Auto Finance, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services, Volkswagen Financial Services) and one from Consumer Voice. The FCA's 8th May statement said hearings are unlikely before October and told lenders to prepare for a decision around mid-November, with an admitted scenario in which there is no scheme at all. Complain to your lender directly now. FCA statement.
• Buy-now-pay-later regulation starts 15th July. New FCA rules bring BNPL into scope with affordability checks, clear upfront terms, Consumer Duty obligations and, for the first time, Financial Ombudsman access for borrowers. Unauthorised providers must join the Temporary Permissions Regime before then. FCA press release.
• FCA warns Premier League clubs over sponsors. On 3rd June the regulator wrote to football clubs warning that crypto and trading-platform sponsors may be offering regulated services or making unlawful financial promotions without authorisation. Both are criminal offences under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Clubs must verify each sponsor's regulatory status. FCA news.
• MoneySavingExpert keeps the free-tool drum beating. MSE continues to push its free car-finance reclaim tool and the FCA's line that you do not need a claims management company charging over 30 per cent. With the scheme delayed, the advice is to get complaints in directly and as soon as possible. Martin Lewis reclaim guide.
• Class action regime under review. Reporting this week notes a legislative body is examining a bespoke consumer-protection class action regime, which would raise litigation exposure for B2C companies. Lexology.

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