We strive to give you the highest standards of products and services. We understand that things don’t always go to plan, and there may be times when we don’t live up to your expectations. If this happens, we want you to tell us. We’ll do our very best to put things right, as quickly as possible and to your satisfaction.
  
We hope to resolve issues as soon as we know about them. However, if you feel we haven’t achieved this, we have clear and simple procedures in place to make sure we handle your case fairly, sensitively and in line with requirements set by the Financial Services Authority. We will also try to make sure that we fix the root cause of problems so that we don’t make similar mistakes again.

Complaints procedure

We will fully investigate every complaint about our financial services. Even if your complaint relates to a particular policy decision and we are not necessarily able to change things, we will explain it to you.

We want to resolve your complaint straightaway and, in the majority of cases, the first person you speak to will usually be able to resolve things for you.  If we've not been able to do that by the end of the following business day after we've received your complaint, we'll write to you. We'll do this within five business days to acknowledge your complaint and tell you who is dealing with it.

We will then keep you up to date while we are investigating your complaint, until we provide you with a formal resolution letter, as part of our procedure. In most cases reaching this stage, we will be able to resolve your complaint within two weeks of receiving it.

In exceptional circumstances, particularly where your complaint is complex, it may take over eight weeks to resolve matters for you. We will, however, write to you at that point to let you know you may be eligible to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to review your complaint.
 
If you’re unhappy with our response to your complaint, you can ask the Ombudsman for an independent review.  See the section below for further details on the FOS.

  
You can also email us with your name, address, postcode and phone number so that we can get back to you.

   
We are committed to resolving your complaint to your satisfaction and hope that together we can reach an agreement. The Financial Ombudsman Service exists to help resolve complaints and disputes as an impartial adjudicator, within the existing law. The Bank has agreed to accept the awards and impartial decisions made by the Financial Ombudsman.

As mentioned in our complaints procedure, if you’re unhappy with our response to your complaint, you can ask the Ombudsman for an independent review. The Ombudsman offers a free independent service, but before they look at your complaint, they will ask you to give us the opportunity to put things right for you.

Here's how to contact the Financial Ombudsman:

The Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza
183 Marsh Wall
London
E14 9SR

Telephone: 0845 080 1800
Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

Complaint volumes

Sainsbury's Bank aims to provide the best possible service to our customers. We recognise, however, that things can go wrong and when this happens we are committed to putting things right as quickly as possible.  We encourage our customers to tell us if they are unhappy and we view complaints as a valuable source of feedback and as a learning opportunity.

As part of our commitment to getting things right we are pleased to be able to provide details below of the volume of complaints we report to the Financial Services Authority.

We will update this information at the end of February and August each year.

The Financial Services Authority publishes aggregate complaint data covering all firms.

The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes separate complaints data on the number of complaints referred to it by individual firms.

Complaints publication report

Firm name:  Sainsbury's Bank plc
Group:  Not applicable
Other firms included in this report:  None
Period covered in this report:  1 January - 30 June 2011
Brands/trading names covered:  Sainsbury's Bank plc/Sainsbury's Finance

 
To help you put the above figures into context:

• Our customers hold over 1.25 million banking products, combining credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts.
• We received less than 2 complaints for every 1,000 of these accounts held.
• We no longer offer Home Finance products (i.e mortgages)
• We act as an introducer for general insurance products. Our insurance partners will report complaints received regarding these products to the FSA as part of their own complaints returns.
• We do not offer products under the 'Decumulation, life and pensions' and 'Investments' categories above.  

      
Please also see our full glossary of terms regarding our complaints data.