Lloyds and Barclays lead the league for FOS complaints
Share
The Santander group is fourth with 4,318 complaints across all its brands, including Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Santander Asset Management. HSBC saw 2,969 complaints across its brands and Aviva has 1,229, Axa 929 and Pearl Group 815.
There is a 71 per cent uphold rate against Barclays for cases resolved in favour of the complainant in the first half of 2009. The average uphold rate is 59 per cent for all businesses. Lloyds TSB Bank has an uphold rate of 81 per cent and received 6,947 complaints in the first half of 2009. Lloyds subsidiary Black Horse has a 95 per cent uphold rate and a total of1,009 complaints in the first half.
Sesame is the only IFA firm included in the figures with 144 complaints and an uphold rate of 32 per cent. St James's Place saw 61 complaints and an uphold rate of 59 per cent.
Mortgage lender GMAC-RFC has an uphold rate of 74 per cent while Northern Rock saw 78 per cent of complaints upheld.
Prudential has one of the lowest uphold rates at 15 per cent and Standard Life is fairly low with 23 per cent of complaints upheld in favour of the client.
SimplyBiz chairman Ken Davy says: "We have consistently argued that IFAs are responsible for a tiny proportion of complaints. In a career of 30 years or so, the average adviser may have between three and five complaints and possibly just one of those will become a claim.
"This is clear evidence of the robustness of the IFA sector and shows the importance that the FSA should attach to it and ensure it does not damage the sector."
This is the first time that the FOS has individually named firms. The Association of British Insurers has hit out at the way that the data has been presented, saying it may mislead customers.
Director of consumer strategy Maggie Craig says: "It is right that consumers should know about the performance of firms who look after their insurance and investment needs and complaint-handling is an important part of that. But any such data must be presented in a way that helps consumers make informed choices.
"Unfortunately, the way the FOS has chosen to present the data does not achieve this aim and may mislead consumers about the performance of individual firms. For example, consumers cannot compare performance by sector or by product."
Which? chief executive Peter Vicary-Smith, says: "Naming and shaming these companies is a victory for consumers but humiliating for the industry, who have had five years to get their houses in order. We would like to see the financial sector going further and publishing more data, particularly on brand names and product types."
Complaints to the FOS
The 10 financial services companies with the highest number of complaints referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service Company No of complaints
Lloyds Banking Group 15,233
Barclays 8,802
Royal Bank of Scotland 5,883
Santander Group 4,318
HSBC 2,969
MBNA 2,298
Capital One 1,744
Citibank 1,709
Aviva 1,229
Nationwide 1,149
Source: FOS
If you enjoyed this article, sign up here to receive daily email updates from Money Marketing and Follow @_moneymarketing
