The most-complained about financial firms

FCA data reveals Barclays has been on the receiving end of the most complaints.

The Financial Conduct Authority has published its latest complaints data, revealing that once again Barclays has received the most complaints.

The data covers July to December last year, with the total number of complaints falling from 2,911,154 to 2,478,029 compared to the previous six months.

And in fairness to Barclays, it was one of the firms to see a sharp decrease in complaints; it received 309,494 complaints, a fall of 17% from the first six months of 2013.

Here are the five firms who received the most complaints across the year:

That top five isn’t hugely surprising, given the size of the firms involved. It’s always going to be the biggest banks and financial firms that get more complaints than smaller firms. Perhaps a more interesting figure is the percentage of complaints upheld.

Let’s take a look at the ten firms most likely to have a complaint upheld against them.

What we are complaining about

So what are the things that we are most likely to be complaining about?

Perhaps it should be no surprise that payment protection insurance (PPI) continues to dominate new complaints. It was responsible for a whopping 1,390,756 new complaints in the second half of 2013, though this actually represents a fall of 22% on the first half of the year.

After that comes other general insurance products at 321,812 new complaints (up 3%), current accounts with 303,110 new complaints (up 8%), credit cards with 140,829 new complaints (down 14%) and savings/other banking products, with 82,353 new complaints (down 16%).

Unfortunately, the FCA doesn’t break down complaints by specific areas; instead PPI falls within the General Insurance and Pure Protection grouping, while current accounts, credit cards and savings all fall within the Banking grouping.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the worst offenders in each area in terms of both number of new complaints and the percentage of complaints upheld.

Compare current accounts with lovemoney.com

Banking

Most complaints

% of complaints upheld

Volkswagen Financial Services tops the percentage of complaints upheld table, with a whopping 89% of cases concluded in favour of the complainant. While Aviva received just nine complaints, it was generally found to be in the wrong.

Compare current accounts with lovemoney.com

Home finance (mortgages and equity release)

Most complaints

% of complaints upheld

Not such good results here for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. While none of its brands feature in the most complaints table, three of the five in the percentage of upheld complaints table are part of its group

General insurance and pure protection (includes PPI)

Most complaints

% of complaints upheld

Coutts & Co is the first firm we’ve seen where 100% of complaints were upheld, though as it received just two complaints that’s perhaps not too surprising. Barclays Group has a brand feature in both tables.

Decumulation, life and pensions

Most complaints

% of complaints upheld

Compare current accounts with lovemoney.com

Investments

Most complaints

% of complaints upheld

More on banking and consumer rights:

The most successful PPI complaints

How to claim your PPI compensation

How to complain about your energy supplier

How to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service