Money News

Barclays is most complained-about bank

By Martin Fagan

FSA received over 250,000 complaints about Barclays in first six months of 2011, with Lloyds TSB and Santander also shamed.

Barclays received the highest number of complaints in the UK banking sector during the first six months of the year, according to new data published by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Between January and June this year, hacked-off Barclays customers registered 251,563 complaints with the bank, nearly one complaint every minute of every day over the six months.

Barclays said the figure of 251,563 complaints was 14% lower than in the same period last year.

According to the FSA's statistics, the rate of customer dissatisfaction across the entire banking sector had doubled in a year. Banks and other financial companies received around 10,000 complaints every day - a total of 1.76 million - in the first six months of 2011.

Lloyds TSB racked up the second highest number of complaints at 181,907, an additional 6,000 complaints on the bank's previous six-month total. Spanish-owned Santander has now moved into third place with 168,888 complaints. NatWest was fourth with 147,109 complaints.

More than half of complaints made about banks focussed on the issue of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). Of the 812,197 complaints about banks, more than half a million were made by customers affected by PPI.

“The big high street banks attract a huge number of complaints and have a poor track record for customer satisfaction, yet few people vote with their feet by switching providers,” said Peter Vicary-Smith, Which? chief executive.

“This shows that the market isn’t working. The regulator must act to promote competition by dramatically improving the switching process so banks have a simple choice - look after your customers or lose them.”

Commenting on the FSA’s latest complaints figures, Adam Scorer, director of external affairs at watchdog Consumer Focus, said: “Again it seems PPI is driving the rise in overall complaints. This issue continues to dog the financial sector and is a big test of its commitment to treating consumers fairly.

“Our advice is that if consumers have a genuine grievance with their bank, insurer or any other financial institution they should complain and stick to their guns until they are happy with the outcome.”

Of the total complaints made, just over half were settled in favour of customers. The FSA figures also showed that, of the major banks, Santander was most likely to resolve a case within an eight-week window.