New figures from the Financial Ombudsman Service have revealed which financial firms attracted the most complaints in the second half of last year, with Lloyds Bank topping the latest table.
Every six months the Ombudsman publishes data on exactly how many complaints it sees about each individual financial firm, and how many complaints are then upheld by the Ombudsman.
And from 1st July to 31st December Lloyds Bank received more than 24,000 complaints. That’s a reduction in the total number of complaints received from the previous six months, when it received a whopping 30,768. However the number of upheld complaints has jumped from 66% to 74%.
Here’s how the top 10 most complained-about firms look:
|
Firm |
Complaints received 1st July – 31st December 2014 (uphold rate) |
Complaints received 1st January – 30th June 2014 (uphold rate) |
|
Lloyds Bank |
24,245 (74%) |
30,768 (66%) |
|
Barclays Bank |
21,078 (66%) |
26,955 (66%) |
|
Bank of Scotland |
19,706 (51%) |
27,883 (51%) |
|
HSBC |
11,345 (56%) |
12,429 (78%) |
|
NatWest |
7,663 (44%) |
7,211 (40%) |
|
Capital One |
6,498 (59%) |
5,303 (32%) |
|
Santander |
6,296 (44%) |
7,876 (51%) |
|
Royal Bank of Scotland |
5,416 (44%) |
6,072 (38%) |
|
MBNA |
4,416 (66%) |
7,832 (93%) |
|
Nationwide |
4,117 (9%) |
4,886 (12%) |
There are a few interesting things to note here. Let’s start with a positive. Only NatWest and Capital One have seen the number of complaints increase between the first half of last year and the second half. Everyone else has cut the number of complaints by anything from 8% to 43%.
However, the number of upheld complaints remains astonishing (Nationwide excepted). The firms in the table above are some of the biggest financial companies in the country, so it stands to reason that they would attract more complaints than small players. What doesn’t stand to reason is the sheer number of times they are wrong to have dismissed a complaint.
Across the six months, the average uphold rate for all financial firms was 52%. It's absolutely appalling that so many firms are wrong to write off a complaint. Clearly, if your bank or credit card provider turns down your complaint, there’s a pretty good chance they are in the wrong and you should pursue it with the Ombudsman.
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What is the Financial Ombudsman Service?
[SPOTLIGHT]If you have a complaint about a financial firm, and the firm hasn’t addressed the problem to your satisfaction, then you can take it to the FOS. The FOS is a free service, and if it finds in your favour it could instruct the firm to pay compensation.
Check out How to complain to the FOS for more.
What are we complaining about?
Payment protection insurance (PPI) remains the main driver of complaints, as it is responsible for 65% of the cases referred to the Ombudsman in the second half of the year. The Ombudsman said that resolving these cases remains a priority, but noted that there has been a change in the nature of the PPI complaints passed on to the Ombudsman, with them becoming “increasingly hard-fought and more complex”.
Banking complaints (8%) and investment complaints (4%) both increased over the six months.
Caroline Wayman, chief ombudsman, said that the FOS sees many entrenched disputes that could have been avoided. She said “Problems could often have been cleared up much earlier, if there had been better communication between the financial business and their customer.”
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