5 September 2017
The Financial Ombudsman Service has published its latest six-monthly complaints data relating to banks, insurers and other financial businesses. The figures show that the ombudsman took on a total of around 170,000 new cases in the first six months of this year.
This represents a 13% increase in complaint figures when compared to the last six months of 2016 – and reflects rises in almost every product sector including PPI and banking.
245 businesses feature in the complaints data for the January to June period [13 for the first time]. Most of the businesses named in the complaints data for the first time operate in the consumer credit sector. The average uphold rate (where the ombudsman found in the consumer’s favour) for all businesses over the six-month period was 36% – and ranges from 3% to 79% across the individual businesses.
Caroline Wayman, chief ombudsman and chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service, says:
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.
