The most complained-about banks

Every six months the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) publishes data on which individual financial firms have attracted the most complaints.

The Ombudsman is where you take your complaint if you have already complained to a financial firm but they haven’t resolved the issue to your satisfaction.

The latest figures cover the six-month period from 1st July 2013 to 31st December 2013.

They include the number of complaints received against an individual business and the percentage of complaints upheld in the complainant’s favour.

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Latest scores

The latest results show complaints were up 38% with the Ombudsman taking on a record 575,836 new cases over 2013, with 248,801 coming in the last half of the year.

Here is how the nation’s biggest banks and building societies fared, ordered by number of new complaints.

Bank/building society	Number of UK customers	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Lloyds Banking Group (Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Cheltenham & Gloucester and Scottish Widows)	30 million	81,577	48%
Barclays	15 million	36,506	77%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank)	17 million	16,603	37%
HSBC Group (HSBC Bank and Marks & Spencer Bank)	16 million	16,389	46%
Santander	14 million	8,389	40%
Nationwide Building Society	15 million	6,436	10%
National Australia Bank Group (Clydesdale Bank only)	7.7 million	3,157	24%
The Co-operative Group (Co-operative Bank only)	5.5 million	1,786	23%
Tesco Bank	5.8 million	1,707	19%
Yorkshire Building Society	3.25 million	1,174	4%
Leeds Building Society	695,642	290	9%
Skipton Building Society	744,000	245	7%
Coventry Building Society	1.59 million	196	3%
Newcastle Building Society	431,256	166	2%
West Bromwich Building Society	487,000	154	3%
Principality Building Society	499,344	110	4%
Cumberland Building Society	167,174	100	2%
Virgin Money	3 million	70	23%
Nottingham Building Society	192,529	62	4%

Sources: Financial Ombudsman Service, Building Societies Association and annual reports

Winners and losers

As you can see, it’s been another poor year for Lloyds Banking Group, which attracted the most complaints, of which around half were upheld. Lloyds Bank alone was the subject of 40,500 new complaints (54% were found in favour of the customer) and Bank of Scotland 39,134 (43% were found in favour of the customer) while Cheltenham & Gloucester picked up 1,811 and Scottish Widows 132.

But it’s Barclays that found itself on the losing side of the Ombudsman’s judgments in the vast majority of cases, with the adjudicator ruling in favour of the complainant in 77% of cases. When you consider the average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant stood at 51% across the financial sector, it’s clear Barclays has done pretty badly.

And Barclays, despite having a similar number of customers as the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC groups, attracted over double the number of complaints those two groups did.

Building societies attracted fewer complaints but, as you can see, these institutions tend to have fewer customers than the big banks.

Nottingham Building Society attracted the smallest number of new complaints according to the data at just 62, but considering it has under 200,000 customers that is perhaps unsurprising. Lloyds Banking Group, in comparison, has 30 million customers to keep happy.

Out of the 45 odd building societies in the UK, Nationwide is the biggest by far, boasting 15 million customers and comprising 62% of the sector by proportion of assets (£193 million). It attracted 6,436 complaints but only 10% of complaints were found in favour of the complainant.

All of the complaints data is available on the Financial Ombudsman Service’s website if you want to check in detail how your bank or building society performed.

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What we’re complaining about

It should come as no great surprise that payment protection insurance (PPI) continues to be the main area for complaints. Over those six months, 76% of the complaints referred to the Ombudsman centred on this form of insurance, with five financial firms accounting for almost 70% of the new PPI cases.

The number of non-PPI complaints actually fell 8%. This was helped along by an 11% drop in banking and credit complaints as well as a 7% drop in insurance complaints.

Here are the top five most-complained about high street banks and building societies in each category:

Banking and credit

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Barclays	3,782	50%
Lloyds Bank	2,864	26%
NatWest	2,739	45%
Santander	2,272	43%
Bank of Scotland	2,003	27%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 38%

Mortgages and home finance

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Bank of Scotland	1,126	34%
Santander	969	29%
Northern Rock	493	33%
Barclays	383	46%
Nationwide	324	27%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 30%

General insurance (excluding PPI)

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
HSBC	496	13%
Barclays	327	50%
Bank of Scotland	284	60%
Lloyds Bank	231	9%
Santander	217	28%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 40%

PPI

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Lloyds Bank	36,954	59%
Bank of Scotland	35,500	44%
Barclays	31,717	81%
HSBC	12,838	54%
Royal Bank of Scotland	6,298	31%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 56%

Investments

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Lloyds Bank	184	21%
Barclays	153	60%
Santander	90	43%
HSBC	83	50%
Bank of Scotland	76	35%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 42%

Life & pensions

Bank or building society	Number of new complaints	Percentage of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant
Bank of Scotland	145	32%
Barclays	144	27%
Lloyds Bank	135	24%
Santander	129	31%
HSBC	41	33%

Average percentage of complaints resolved in favour of complainant for all businesses – 27%

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