FOS: advice complaints fall by 10%

The number of complaints about financial products other than PPI fell by 10% to 71,663 in H2 2015.

Related topics:  Finance News
Rozi Jones
23rd February 2016
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The Financial Ombudsman Service says this reflects a downward trend in some areas such as packaged bank accounts, mortgages and pensions.

PPI still made up over half (56%) of new complaints, totalling 92,667 - on a par with the previous period (94,091).

The ombudsman took on a total of 164,347 new cases in the second half of 2015 – a slight decrease of 6% on the previous period.

Life and pensions complaints fell by 12%, while investment advice complaints fell 22%.

Sesame was the most complained about advice firm with 116 complaints, however this was down 33% from H1.

Openwork came in second with 79 new complaints, down 29% from H1.

Chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman said:

"The financial services sector has been through a challenging and volatile period in the eight years since the ombudsman first began to publish data about individual financial businesses. Though it still makes sense to plan for uncertainty and change ahead, the signs are that complaints are now broadly levelling off as we move onto a more even keel in the coming year.

"Complaints about PPI still continue to make up over half of our workload. During 2015, PPI complaints finally began to approach stable levels – but we’re still seeing the volume of cases at a much higher level than many people expected.

"There are many factors that can influence the complaints we see, from fluctuations in the stock market to extreme weather conditions – and more people knowing their rights when things go wrong. That’s why I believe it’s important that we continue to find new ways to work so we can resolve complaints quickly, while sharing our knowledge so businesses can avoid the ‘big claims issues’ of the past."

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