Complaint Handling Procedures

Arab Bank Australia Limited (ABAL) is committed to providing you with superior service and places importance upon any issue you may have in regards to our products or service standards. Please bring any problems you may have in this regard to the attention of our branch staff, and they will attempt to resolve the matter straight away. In some cases where there are complicated facts or circumstances, or where we need to deal with third parties, it might take some time to investigate. If your problem cannot be resolved immediately to your satisfaction, we will acknowledge it and try to resolve it as quickly as we can. You may then make a complaint by either:

• asking our staff to provide you with a complaint form so that it may be completed and returned to ABAL; or
• asking our staff to record details of the matter and treat it as a complaint.

Where and how to complain:

How we deal with complaints:

ABAL’s Senior Management take complaints seriously because they give us important information about how we can better serve our customers. ABAL has a Dispute Resolution Officer who is responsible for reviewing complaints to ensure they are dealt with appropriately.

A summary of ABAL’s complaint handling process is as follows:

• The process is free of charge.
• Your complaint will be dealt with in an open, impartial, confidential and equitable manner.
• Highly skilled staff who have good understanding of your problem will deal with the complaint.
• Within 2 business days you will get an acknowledgement of your complaint.
• Within 10 business days, we will inform you in writing of either the outcome of our investigation, or alternatively if there is a need for more time to complete our investigations, we will inform you that we will complete our investigations within 45 days of receipt of your complaint unless there are exceptional circumstances.
• Where investigations proceed beyond 45 days, we will inform you of the reasons for the delay, provide a monthly update on the progress of our investigation and a date when a decision can be reasonably expected.

If you are not satisfied with the decision on your complaint, you may ask for the decision to be reviewed as a dispute by ABAL’s Senior Management. A summary of the dispute handling process is as follows:

• The process is free of charge.
• Within 2 business days you will get written acknowledgement of your dispute.
• Within 21 days of receiving notice of the dispute, we will inform you in writing of either the outcome of our investigation, or alternatively if there is a need for more time to complete our investigations, we will inform you that we will complete our investigations within 45 days of receipt of notice of your dispute unless there are exceptional circumstances.
• Where investigations proceed beyond 45 days, we will inform you of the reasons for the delay, provide a monthly update on the progress of our investigation and a date when a decision can be reasonably expected.

Alternatively, if you are not satisfied with the outcome of the above process you may contact the Financial Ombudsman Services (contact details are GPO Box 3 MELBOURNE VIC 3001, telephone number 1300 780808, facsimile 03 9613 6399, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or website www.fos.org.au).