PPI and packaged bank accounts bring in more complaints for the Ombudsman

The national IFA garnered 51 complaints in the period between 1 January and 30 June 2015.

But it advised customers to complain directly to their bank, rather than going through claims management companies, which now handle 80% of the complaints received by the Ombudsman.

The FOS received 172 new complaints against Sesame in the first half of 2015, a fall of about 13% compared to the same period past year.

Lloyds Banking Group was the most complained about group with 42,096 complaints though this was down 9% on the previous six months.

Interactive Investor Trading was third with 75 complaints and a 63 per cent uphold rate, up from 61 complaints in the previous half and a similar uphold rate of 62 per cent.

Overall, the ombudsman saw a rise of 8% in the number of complaints received against banks, insurers and other financial businesses in the first six months of 2015, totalling 173,994 compared to 161,649 in the second half of previous year.

“We are pleased the rate of upheld complaints has fallen”. “We will continue to work closely with advisers to ensure all customers receive demonstrably suitable advice”.

Complaints about mis-sold payment protection insurance are tailing off, but grievances about packaged bank accounts are taking their place.

Across all firms that fall under the ombudsman’s remit the average rate of FOS decisions in favour of consumers was 57 per cent, ranging between 5 to 94 per cent across individuals businesses.

Network rival Openwork, owned by Zurich, was the second most complained about advisory company, with 111 complaints made against it during the first half of the year. There were 222 businesses featured in the list, of which 22 are included for the first time.

Bungling banks are still struggling to get their houses in order after the number of new complaints about their behaviour rose dramatically in the first half of the year.

Chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman says: “It’s been seven years since the ombudsman first began to publish data about individual financial businesses”.

‘Claims managers have also been largely responsible for the substantial increase in complaints about packaged bank accounts, which have driven up our banking workload over this period by two thirds’.

The ombudsman, funded by levies on companies within the business, stated it’s “working intently with companies, claims corporations and their regulators” to resolve the rest of the PPI complaints and stop one other product from turning into as huge a scandal. “If we can all achieve this, then the next seven years should be a different story”.