When to send it
Wait three business days first. Most holds clear on their own inside that window, and sending this letter into a queue that would have cleared anyway makes you look impatient rather than serious. Send the letter only if all three are true: more than three business days have passed since the app paused the transfer, you have already replied to at least one document request from the firm, and support has now replied with the same scripted message twice.
If the situation is different (a transfer that is delayed but not held, a possible wrong account number, or an app that says the transfer was cancelled rather than under review), start at the transfer-help hub instead. This letter is only for the held case.
The letter
Copy this into an email to the firm's complaints address. That address is usually in the app's help centre or in the footer of the firm's website, and it usually starts with complaints@. Fill in the parts in square brackets.
Subject: Formal complaint - transfer held at verification - reference [REF]
To the Complaints Team,
I am making a formal complaint about a transfer that has been held
for verification since [DATE], reference [REF]. The full amount of
[AMOUNT] was debited from my card on [DATE], statement line [LINE].
To your compliance team I have already sent:
- [DOCUMENT 1] on [DATE], ticket [TICKET NUMBER].
- [DOCUMENT 2] on [DATE], ticket [TICKET NUMBER].
- [FURTHER REPLIES] on [DATES].
I am treating this as a payment-services complaint under Regulation
101 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/752). Under the
FCA rules for payment-services complaints (DISP 1.6.2AR), the firm
must send a final response within 15 business days of receipt of a
complaint. Please treat this email as the start of that clock.
Please confirm by [DATE, 5 BUSINESS DAYS FROM TODAY] either that the
transfer will be released, or the specific ground on which it will
not be. If a final response is not sent within the 15-business-day
window, I intend to refer the matter to the Financial Ombudsman
Service.
Regards,
[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR ACCOUNT REFERENCE]What to expect back
You will get one of two replies. The first is a substantive email inside 48 to 72 hours, either releasing the transfer or asking for one specific extra document. That is the usual pattern once a compliance officer sees the regulatory reference on the ticket. It is not a guarantee. The 15-business-day clock is on the firm, not on your money. But that is what most letters like this produce.
The second is silence, or another scripted reply. If the 15 business days pass with no substantive final response, you can refer the complaint to the 
Financial Ombudsman Service at no cost to you. This works when the firm holds a UK authorisation. Some apps you can use from the UK are actually authorised in another country. Before you write to any ombudsman, look at the bottom of the firm's website. It will say something like "authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority" or "authorised by the National Bank of Belgium." The right ombudsman follows from that.
Corrections
- 2026-08-01: An earlier version of the letter body cited Regulation 117 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (SI 2017/752) as the regulation the sender was invoking. Regulation 117 is the FCA's own duty to maintain complaint arrangements at the regulator; the regulation that binds a payment-service provider to run its own complaints procedure and reply within 15 business days is Regulation 101 ("Dispute resolution"). The letter now cites Regulation 101, so a compliance officer reads it as the intended in-firm complaint rather than a threat to complain to the FCA.