Ombud Council AR 2026

PART B: PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

Outcome 3: Conduct risks identified through analysis of reported Ombud data and shared with relevant stakeholders to enable mitigation through policy and regulatory responses. The Council finalised and implemented, and continues to enhance, a streamlined reporting framework for the ombud schemes. It requires ombud schemes to submit consistent quarterly complaint data to the Council. The Council analyses the quarterly data received from the schemes and shares consolidated information with the Minister of Finance and regulators, meeting our targeted output of providing these reports on a quarterly basis. Pursuant to this Outcome 3, the Council has made good progress in identifying opportunities for supporting the financial sector regulators in mitigating financial sector conduct risks, informed by complaints data and complaints-handling experiences of the financial sector ombud schemes we oversee. The Council has engaged with the financial sector regulators and, in line with the targeted output for this outcome, we have put forward three documented proposals to respond to specific identified conduct risks. The three proposals entail collaborative use of ombud system information in the following ways: • Specific areas of collaboration and sharing of ombud system data on complaints relating to digital banking fraud were facilitated between the NFO and the FSCA, to support the FSCA’s risk mitigation efforts in this regard. • Structured engagement and information sharing between the FSCA and the FAIS Ombud were facilitated to identify trends in intermediary misconduct, which may include inappropriate financial advice, mis-selling of financial products, and other intermediary conduct risks. • While debt counselling activity falls outside the jurisdiction of the financial ombud system, by virtue of it being excluded from the definition of “financial service” in the FSR Act, the ombud system receives a high volume of complaints about these providers. This provided an opportunity for the Ombud Council to facilitate the NFO’s support to the NCR, by leveraging the NFO’s relationships with its participants where resolution of a debt counselling-related complaint by the NCR requires cooperation and input from banks or non-bank credit providers.

• Youth empowerment initiative where presentations were conducted and hands-on assistance was provided to young people on university application support, career guidance, consumer awareness and financial education, particularly the redress mechanism available via the financial ombud system. • Presentations at a school targeting young women and the youth on understanding rights and responsibilities as future financial customers. • Invitations to speak in panel discussions with the Financial Intermediaries Association of South Africa, the Ombudsman Association of South Africa, the Public Relations Institute of South Africa and the PAN African Women Empowerment Summit. • Presentation at a financial adviser and intermediaries’ services event, where the role of the Council and how providers could support the system were explained. • Interactive workshop, in collaboration with the FSCA, at Stellenbosch University, where students were equipped with financial skills that included money management and dispute resolution. The targeted output to develop and publish a baseline measure to assess levels of awareness, understanding and usage of the financial ombud system among financial services customers was not achieved. As explained in paragraph 2.1.2 of this report, this non-achievement was due to procurement delays primarily attributable to cash flow constraints arising from the protracted legislative process for levy approval – a process entirely outside the Council’s control. As a result, it was not possible to embark on this project as planned, and completion of this deliverable has been deferred to the 2026/27 financial year. This has also necessitated an adjustment to the Council’s Strategic Plan, as reflected in Annexure A to our 2026/27 APP: Due to the deferment of the baseline study project, it will no longer be feasible to re-run the measure within the five-year period, as the intervening period is likely to be too short to yield meaningful results. Re-running the measure therefore needs to be deferred to after the completion of the five-year planning period. The outcome indicator and five-year target for this Strategic Plan outcome have therefore been changed to focus on using the findings of the baseline study to identify gaps in consumer awareness and usage of the financial ombud system and developing and implementing targeted education and awareness initiatives to address these (see Table 6 in paragraph 3 above).

Ombud Council 2025/26 Annual Report

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