Not upheld: Account administration errors complaint against Embark Investment Services Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Miss O complained that Embark failed to follow her instruction to not pay interest on her stocks and shares ISA due to her religious beliefs. Embark explained it lacked the operational functionality to reliably prevent interest application. When Miss O closed her account, Embark made a one-off charitable donation of £0.29 of the accrued interest. The ombudsman did not uphold the complaint, finding that the account terms and conditions clearly disclosed that interest would be paid, Embark had never offered an opt-out option, and the one-off charitable donation did not establish an obligation to provide such a service regularly.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Embark acted fairly and reasonably because: (1) the terms and conditions clearly explained that interest would be paid and accrued daily; (2) Embark's website contained no mention of being able to turn off interest; (3) Embark had never communicated to Miss O that it could provide an option to opt out of interest; (4) while Embark made a one-off charitable donation when closing the account, this does not establish that it should have offered this service regularly; and (5) the ombudsman cannot direct businesses what services to provide, only whether they have acted fairly in individual complaints.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website