FCA: financial services complaints up 11.6%

Overall complaints decreased by 2.1% compared to the previous six months, driven by the fall in PPI-related complaints. The ‘decumulation, life and pensions’ product group saw a rise of 19.7% to 73,055 complaints, while ‘general insurance and pure protection’, which contains PPI-related complaints, saw a drop of 13.6% to 1,204,783.

When PPI is excluded, complaints continued to increase, this time by 11.6% to 1,255,166 between the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015.

This increase was mainly caused by a 21.8% rise in the number of complaints relating to the group of products containing banking and credit cards over the six months to the end of June and specifically by the advising, selling and arranging of these products which more than doubled from 133,922 in 2014 H2 (second half of the year) to 276,071 complaints in 2015 H1.

PPI complaints fell by 16.6% to 883,043 compared to the second half of 2014, continuing the trend since the second half of 2012.

While PPI accounted for less than half (41.3%) of complaints for the second time in three years, and fell below 1 million complaints per half year period for the first time since 2012, it remained the most complained about product.

The total redress paid fell by 18.9% to £1.98bn in 2015 H1 from £2.44bn in 2014 H2, with 83.2% of this amount (£1.65bn) related to ‘general insurance and pure protection’ products, which include PPI products. The redress paid in relation to ‘banking and credit card’ products increased by 46.7% to £212.4m between 2014 H2 and 2015 H1.

The top five most complained about firms, in terms of the number of complaints received in 2015 H1 were:

- Barclays Bank Plc – 283,221 (an increase of 2.4% since 2014 H2)
- Lloyds Bank Plc – 232,971 (a decrease of 4.0% since 2014 H2)
- Bank of Scotland Plc – 190,121 (a decrease of 18.0% since 2014 H2)
- National Westminster Bank Plc – 144,741 (an increase of 14.4% since 2014 H2)
- HSBC Bank Plc – 140,244 (a decrease of 7.8% since 2014 H2)

The FCA’s director of strategy and competition, Christopher Woolard, said:

"While the ongoing fall in PPI complaints is welcome, this is the second half-year running that we have seen complaints about banking products rise. It is clear that firms need to look at the causes for this rise and where necessary take action to address the causes of the trend. Ensuring good consumer outcomes should be at the heart of firms’ activities and we want to see complaints fall in the future as firms seek to ensure that consumers get the right products and services.”