Barclays bank has received the most complaints of any bank in the UK, according to figures released today from the Financial Services Authority.
Of more than 250,000 complaints against Barclays from customers, 53% were upheld.
The number of complaints was actually a drop from the previous six month period when more than 275,000 complaints were lodged.
Lloyds TSB, Santander and Natwest followed Barclays with just over 180,000 complaints reported for Lloyds, 168,000 reported for Santander and 147,000 complaints reported against Natwest. The total number of complaints reported in the survey was 1.76 million.
The data covers the last six months. When taken as an average, the figure amounts to 10,000 complaints per day.
When all banks in a certain banking group were tallied together, the Lloyds Banking Group were the most complained about group of banking brands. The highest number of unresolvedcomplaints with the Financial Ombudsman also were attributed to the Lloyds Banking Group.
A high number of complainants – almost 66% – had contacted banks about payment protection insurance (PPI). A court ruling earlier in the year meant that thousands of customers were entitled to refunds after PPI was found to be routinely mis-sold.
Barclays bank said that they expected the number of complaints against them to rise again as
they work to comply with the PPI ruling.
Santander, which has previously achieved the lowest ranking in satisfaction polls on the Moneysavingexpert.com website, was the most likely to deal with a complaint quickly. 98% of its complaints were closed within the Financial Services Authority guideline of 8 weeks. HSBC were the next most prompt, closing 90% of complaints in that time. They were followed by Barclays (89%), Natwest (86%), Lloyds TSB (77%) and Royal Bank of Scotland (74%).
A survey carried out by Moneysavingexpert.com last year reported that 46% of almost 2,000 Santander customers thought the service provided by the bank was poor. This was a fall from 62% saying the bank was poor the year before.