The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published data on the number of complaints reported by firms under new rules which came into force on 30 June 2016.
The total number of complaints reported by firms in the second half of 2016 was 3.04 million. This number is higher than previous reporting periods because under the FCA’s new rules all complaints are now captured in the data.
The data reflect the fact that under the new rules, financial services firms have longer to resolve complaints less formally. Firms now have three days to address a complaint to a consumer’s satisfaction, this is up from the previous next business day time limit.
The FCA believes the new data set is more informative because it shows the number of complaints against size of the business. It also provides greater insight about the products that consumers complain about. This information will provide a better understanding of the areas where consumers are struggling to gain satisfaction.
Greater transparency of complaints information will enable consumers looking to invest or buy products to be better informed about the products that have caused concern for other consumers.
Christopher Woolard, Executive Director of Strategy and Competition, said:
“Consumers want a simple way to complain that does not leave them out of pocket. And they want to be assured that their concerns will be dealt with fairly and quickly.
“These data will provide us with improved intelligence on complaints including new detailed data to show where industry is potentially failing consumers at product level”.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) is the most complained about product. The total number of PPI complaints was 895,000. Excluding PPI, the number of complaints was 2.15 million. Current accounts were the next most complained about product with around 514,000.
The total redress paid to consumers was £1.9 billion in the second half of 2016. When all redress payments related to PPI are excluded, the redress figure is approximately £0.3 billion during the same time period.
Further firm-level data are available on the FCA’s downloadable tables.
Notes to editors
- Firm specific complaints data
- Aggregate commentary
- The FCA collates and publishes complaints data every six months, alongside aggregated figures covering the whole industry. The data, which can be found on the FCA website, are presented in two different formats: aggregate data showing the overall number of complaints made, and firm-specific data showing figures for individual firms reporting 500 or more opened complaints.
- In July 2015, the FCA published new rules on changes to its complaint handling rules. The reforms have improved the complaints systems and procedures, making them less bureaucratic for firms, easier for consumers and has provided us with improved intelligence on complaints.
- Our analysis is based on the data supplied to us by firms in the new return and as such may be subject to possible reporting errors as firms get used to submitting the new data to us. We have carried out checks to seek to identify and correct errors where we are able to.
- On 1 April 2013, the FCA became responsible for the conduct supervision of all regulated financial firms and the prudential supervision of those not supervised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
- The FCA has an overarching strategic objective of ensuring the relevant markets function well. To support this it has three operational objectives: to secure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers; to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system; and to promote effective competition in the interests of consumers.
- Find out more information about the FCA.