Financial services firms recorded a 2.6 per cent reduction in new complaints between January and June 2016 compared to the previous six months, according to new complaints data published today by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The City watchdog said the total number of complaints was 2.05 million.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) is still the most complained about product, with the total number of PPI complaints more or less unchanged at 0.93 million. Without PPI, the number of complaints was 1.12 million.
Complaints about current accounts have seen the largest reduction – 46,000 or 10% – in this period.
Christopher Woolard, director of strategy and competition, said: “To see another six months of reduction in the total number complaints is encouraging.
“Firms still need to continue to ensure they are doing all they can to reduce consumer dissatisfaction, but the figures show firms are taking our feedback seriously”.
The total redress paid to consumers was £1.96 billion which is less than 1 per cent lower than the redress paid between July and December 2015.
All product categories saw a reduction in redress payments in the first half of 2016 from the second half of 2015, except for home finance group of products which increased by 2 per cent and general insurance and pure protection (including PPI) which increased by 6 per cent.
The top ten firms paid 85 per cent of the total redress given to consumers in the first half of 2016. This is broadly consistent with the previous period during which the top ten firms accounted for 83 per cent of total redress paid to consumers.
The top five most complained about firms between January and June 2016 (excluding consumer credit) were:
Barclays Bank Plc – 287,463 (an increase of 3 per cent since the second half of 2015)
Lloyds Bank PLC – 213,163 (a decrease of 7 per cent since the second half of 2015)
Bank of Scotland plc – 173,646 (a decrease of 5 per cent since the second half of 2015)
HSBC Bank Plc – 124,891 (an increase of 3 per cent since the second half of 2015)
National Westminster Bank Plc – 121,197 (a decrease of 10 per cent since the second half of 2015)
The FCA publishes complaints data received from firms every six months, alongside aggregated figures covering the whole industry. The FCA requires firms which receive 500 or more complaints in a six-month period to publish the information on their websites.
The FCA’s downloadable table provides a link to each firm’s website where you can find this information.
The FCA will be providing more contextualisation information in future publications and will be requiring firms to publish this on their own websites (rather than doing so on a recommended basis) from February next year.
By product group, the firms with the largest number of complaints opened in the first half of 2016 were:
Banking and credit cards
Barclays Bank Plc 124,361
National Westminster Bank Plc 75,736
Lloyds Bank PLC 71,409
HSBC Bank Plc 65,313
Santander UK Plc 58,199
Home finance (mortgages and equity release products)
Bank of Scotland plc 9,894
Santander UK Plc 8,760
HSBC Bank Plc 6,715
Landmark Mortgages Limited 5,894
Barclays Bank Plc 5,272
General insurance and pure protection (including payment protection insurance)
Barclays Bank Plc 153,718
Lloyds Bank PLC 140,669
Bank of Scotland plc 115,121
MBNA Limited 75,995
HSBC Bank Plc 49,292
Decumulation, Life and Pensions
The Prudential Assurance Company Limited 6,161
Friends Life Limited 5,874
The Royal London Mutual Insurance Society Limited 4,711
Aviva Life Services UK Limited 3,267
Phoenix Life Limited 3,109
Investments
Barclays Bank Plc 3,422
HSBC Bank Plc 3,269
Santander UK Plc 2,453
Equiniti Financial Services Limited 1,498
Financial Administration Services Limited 1,474