Today, the British Financial Ombudsman Service published the latest complaints data linked to banks, insurers and other financial businesses. The data deals with complaints handled by the ombudsman service between January and June 2017. It includes almost 170,000 new cases about 245 businesses. Moreover, the average uphold rate, where the ombudsman decided in the consumers’ favor over the businesses, was 36 percent.
Further central aspects are:
- The complaint volume rose by 13 percent compared to the second half of 2016 and covers almost every product sector, such as payment protection insurance (PPI) and banking.
- Once more, PPI continues to be the most complained about product with almost 90,000 complaints, which makes up over half of total complaints to the ombudsman service.
- Complaints about banking and credit increased by 12 percent to roughly 47,000 – one fifth of which (15,000 notifications) was related to consumer credit.
- Moreover, 13 businesses were registered in the data for the first time – and most of which operate in the consumer credit sector.
Caroline Wayman, chief ombudsman and chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service, commented: “We've seen more complaints about most types of financial products in the first half of 2017. The FCA has just launched its communications campaign, which highlights that consumers have until August 2019 to make a complaint about mis-sold PPI. While we still don’t know what impact this will have on our workload, today’s data shows that PPI complaints are already increasing. It’s free to come to the ombudsman – if you’re unsure what to do, get in touch and we’ll see if we can help."
Source: Financial Ombudsman Service
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