Barclays Bank Plc saw a 2.4% rise in complaints made about it to the FCA during the first half of 2015 . It received a total of 283,221 complaints.
The top five most complained about firms for home finance (mortgages and equity release products) were as follows:
- Bank of Scotland Plc – 8,811
- Santander UK Plc – 8,517
- NRAM Plc – 6,015
- HSBC Bank Plc – 5,998
- Barclays Bank Plc – 5,774
In total, financial services firms received 2,138,209 new complaints between January and June 2015.
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, whilst ‘general insurance and pure protection’, which contains PPI related complaints, saw a drop of 13.6% to 1,204,783.
When Payment Protection Insurance (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 (first half of the year).
PPI complaints fell again, this time by 16.6% to 883,043 compared to the second half of 2014, continuing the trend since the second half of 2012.
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.”
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 products and services in 2015 H1 were:
- Payment protection insurance – 883,043 complaints (down 16.6% compared to the previous 6 months)
- Current accounts –506,326 complaints (up 31.2% compared to the previous 6 months)
- Other general insurance – 304,919 complaints (down 4.3% compared to the previous 6 months)
- Credit cards –121,615 complaints (up 11.1% compared to the previous 6 months)
- Savings, including cash ISAs, and other banking – 78,981 complaints (down 6.4% compared to the previous 6 months)
