Trading 212 - Cash ISA - Financial Ombudsman Service complaint on hold

TopSaver1

Just had this email from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) today:

"Thank you for your emails and for your continued patience. I’m aware that your complaint has been with us for some time now and that you may be concerned that you’ve not heard much from us yet.

On the surface the complaint you’ve brought to us appears to be a straightforward assessment of whether Trading 212 UK Limited (Trading 212) has treated you fairly when you asked about a
transfer of a cash ISA.

But there is a complication that we’ve not yet been able to get to the bottom of. The Financial Ombudsman Service can only become involved in disputes when we have the power to do so.
In this instance, because of the way the Trading 212 cash ISA is structured, it is unclear whether Trading 212’s actions fall within the remit of our rules.

This is because your deposits don’t sit with Trading 212 – instead it’s held by a third party bank.

Trading 212 doesn’t have permission from the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to be an ISA manager in its own right and accept deposits. But I can see Trading 212 are a
registered ISA manager with HMRC. We are awaiting clarification from the regulator about how it thinks its rules are intended to apply to this situation. Once we have that clarification, we will then decide if we think we have the power to formally investigate this complaint or not.

It could still be some time before we are able to finalise our position. I can’t say exactly how long it will take for us to conclude our enquiries with the regulator. We will keep you updated regularly, but I wanted to be transparent based on what we currently know."

The above was after I emailed the FOS a couple times and messaged once via the new Ombudsman Connect portal. My complaint was submitted to FOS in September through the FOS website online form. The FOS has this policy where they keep you updated about the complaint every month once it's assigned to a Investigator, but until it's assigned - it's open season for them. Take us long as they want to contact the complainant or not at all (wait until the assigned investigator contacts complainant). If I hadn't kept contacting and asking for an update, they probably would've only told me if Trading 212 isn't within their jurisdiction.

Anyone else experienced issues complaining to the FOS about Trading 212's cash ISA product?

eskbanker

In terms of FOS timescales, they set expectations in six months territory at https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/expect/how-long-it-takes, i.e. 2-3 months to allocate to a case handler and up to 90 days thereafter, both with caveats.

TopSaver1

I checked the Ombudsman Connect platform on the 20 October 2025 and it said case had been allocated to an investigator (has investigator details including contact information):

I contacted the the email address shown, but no response. Then I checked the Ombudsman Connect platform again on 11 November 2025 and it shows 'awaiting allocation to an investigator' for 'Name' (Investigator details):

[Images redacted by Forum Team for personal information]

I then sent a message via the Ombudsman Connect platform. Received a reply via the Ombudsman Connect platform. That was the reply (email - it was sent via the platform) I posted within the OP. It was sent by the member of staff that shows as 'Investigator' (on screenshot of 20 October) but it turns out he is part of the 'Customer Help' team because he has signed the email - [his name - Customer Help - 0800 023 4 567]

This is my fourth complaint to the FOS this year. One complaint took just three weeks (from submission) for an investigator to contact me (via intro email sent by the investigator soon after case allocation). Another one took less than a month. The other one took just over seven weeks. With this one (Trading 212) more than the length of time taken to assign an investigator, it's the assigned, then 'awaiting allocation to an investigator' status without explanation that was confusing.

flaneurs_lobster

Your forth complaint to the Ombudsman this year?

Are you just particularly unlucky in your choice of financial products/services/providers?

dunstonh

Anyone else experienced issues complaining to the FOS about Trading 212's cash ISA product?

It's not really a cash ISA, though.  It's a trading platform for third-party deposits to be held within the ISA wrapper.  
Its closer to an S&S ISA than a cash ISA.   I know they market is a cash ISA but it doesn't work the same way.

This is my fourth complaint to the FOS this year. One complaint took just three weeks (from submission) for an investigator to contact me (via intro email sent by the investigator soon after case allocation). Another one took less than a month. The other one took just over seven weeks. With this one (Trading 212) more than the length of time taken to assign an investigator, it's the assigned, then 'awaiting allocation to an investigator' status without explanation that was confusing.

Four complaints to the FOS in one year is highly unusual.   Most people never use the FOS.   In rare cases they would use the FOS once in their lifetime.   Four in one year could point to there being other issues that are not necessarily the fault of providers.  i.e. are you the weak point.   I don't mean that in a horrible way but are you buying products you don't understand or have expectations about products that don't match reality?

flaneurs_lobster

Have there been complaints to the Ombudsman in previous years?

TopSaver1

flaneurs_lobster said:

Have there been complaints to the Ombudsman in previous years?

After reading your post, I checked the Financial Ombudsman Service decisions database:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/ombudsman-decisions

There was one previous decision (DRN-5536470, issued 9 June 2025 - according to decisions database) against Trading 212 about a Cash ISA. I sent the details to the FOS.

A senior investigator has now replied:

“I appreciate you’ve found a previous decision issued by an ombudsman in July 2025 against Trading 212. However, the way this service operates is that we do not treat past decisions as binding precedents. We assess each complaint on its own merits and individual circumstances.

Product innovation in the financial services market is ever-changing with advances in technology. As products change and develop, we have to take a view in each individual case as to whether the complaint falls within our jurisdiction.”

To be fair, DRN-5536470 is about a Cash ISA withdrawal - nothing to do with deposit-taking activity.

Since then, I’ve found two other decisions - not against Trading 212, but against financial institutions (Plum Money and Moneybox) that also hold ISA money with third-party banks in exactly the same way Trading 212 does - and both decisions definitely dealt with Cash ISAs and deposit-taking activity:

* DRN-5797903 (issued 4 September 2025)
* DRN-5321654 (issued 27 February 2025)

Does anyone know how “ever-changing advances of technology and product innovation” potentially rules out my complaint when these two identical complaints were clearly accepted.

flaneurs_lobster

TopSaver1 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

Have there been complaints to the Ombudsman in previous years?

After reading your post, I checked the Financial Ombudsman Service decisions database:

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-case-studies/ombudsman-decisions

My question was not clear enough, I meant to ask if you had made complaints to the FOS in addition to this year's four.

It was not my intention to prompt you to search the FOS database and inform the FOS of previous cases (for the reasons that the FOS have given you).

dunstonh

Does anyone know how “ever-changing advances of technology and product innovation” potentially rules out my complaint when these two identical complaints were clearly accepted.

Potentially yes.   If it doesn't fall within the FOS's remit, they cannot make a decision on it.

murphydog999

So, as an aside, how do you find out who has permission from the FCA to be an ISA manager? Are they all ISA “managers?’

eskbanker

murphydog999 said:

So, as an aside, how do you find out who has permission from the FCA to be an ISA manager? Are they all ISA “managers?’

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/list-of-individual-savings-account-isa-managers-approved-by-hmrc/registered-individual-savings-account-isa-managers