The Financial Services Ombudsman (FOS) has frozen the total levy paid by all financial businesses, and the case fee, at 2009/2010 levels until March 2011.
The case fee will remain at £500 a time, with the industry-wide levy fixed at £19.5m, according to the FOS Corporate Plan and 2010/11 Budget. Also set to stay the same is the number of free cases available to each business, currently three. Raising the number of free cases would mean increasing the rate of the levy, says the FOS. "This would benefit those few, mainly large, financial businesses which already take up their existing allocation of free cases - but it would require all financial businesses, including smaller ones, to pay more levy," states the Plan. Despite the freezes...
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