The Treasury is currently consulting on whether or not National Savings and Investments are to be brought into line with other providers and have their complaints dealt with by the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Consumers who purchase National Savings and Investments products do have an external point of contact for complaints but the Treasury now seems to want to voluntarily bring the organisation under the wing of the Financial Ombudsman Service. The consultation will end in August.
Our View
We have dual views on this issue. Firstly, allowing consumers to take any complaints that have not been resolved to the Financial Ombudsman Service should be better. Consumers seem to be more aware of this organisation, rather than the Adjudicator and Parliamentary Ombudsman that are in place for NS&I at the moment.
Making it easier for consumers to deal with can only be of benefit. Our second view relates to the funding and contribution that NS&I would have to make in order to come under the FOS. As NS&I is a Treasury backed organisation, it doesn't take much to work out that fees and compensation payments would actually be paid indirectly by taxpayers.