The British Financial Ombudsman Service released the latest six-monthly complaints data relating to individual financial businesses. Those include the high street banks and insurance companies.
The data deals with complaints handled by the ombudsman service between 1 January and 30 June 2013. They include the number of complaints received about individual financial businesses and the percentage of complaints the ombudsman upheld in the consumer’s favour against those businesses.
- During the six-month period, the ombudsman service took on a record number of 327,035 new complaints – an increase of 15 percent on the previous six months.
- More than eight out of ten (86 percent) of the total complaints were dealing with payment protection insurance (PPI).
- For complaints about financial products other than PPI, the total number of complaints referred to the ombudsman reduced by 15 percent from 71,366 to 60,807 during the first six months of the year. This involved a decrease of 22 percent in banking complaints and 3 percent in insurance cases.
Natalie Ceeney, chief executive and chief ombudsman, said: "During the first six months of this year we sorted out a record number of complaints for people – making real progress in tackling the customer-service fallout from the mis-selling of PPI, widely accepted as the largest financial mis-selling scandal. But, more positively, we are seeing encouraging signs from some major businesses that are starting to recognise the value of getting things right for their customers – with an increased focus on sorting out problems and concerns as quickly as possible."
Source: Financial Ombudsman Service
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