As part of our commitment to being a transparent regulator, we publish complaints data at both an industry-wide and firm-specific level.
This data provides firms with a benchmark and an incentive to improve their treatment of retail customers and handling of complaints. This feeds into our consumer protection strategy, in which we seek to ensure that consumers receive prompt and effective redress. The data also gives consumers an indication of how different firms or types of firm handle complaints.
The complaints included in these datasets are complaints that firms report to us. We define a complaint as any oral or written expression of dissatisfaction, whether justified or not, about the firm's provision of (or failure to provide) a financial service which alleges that the customer has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience. Firms do not have to report complaints that are resolved to the customer’s satisfaction by the close of the business day after the complaint was made.
The aggregate data includes all the complaints that firms report to us. The firm-level data includes data from firms that report 500 or more complaints in a six-monthly reporting period. This accounts for around 95% of complaints reported to us.
The Financial Ombudsman Service also publishes data on the complaints it deals with. These are complaints referred to it by customers who are dissatisfied with how firms have handled their complaints. Aggregate and firm-level complaints data can be found on its website. The ombudsman service’s data can be combined with firms’ data to provide a fuller picture of how firms handle complaints. However, complaints that are dealt with first by a firm and then by the ombudsman service will not necessarily be recorded in the same period in the two datasets.
Notes
The full definition of a complaint is in the Handbook glossary. Firms must report complaints from eligible complainants concerning activities carried on from an establishment maintained by them or their appointed representative in the United Kingdom. Firms do not have to report complaints that are resolved by close of business on the business day following its receipt (see DISP 1.5). A complaint is resolved where the complainant has indicated acceptance of a response from the firm, with neither the response nor the acceptance having to be in writing. In many cases, firms will be able to resolve a complaint, particularly an oral complaint, within this time, and it will therefore not be covered by the complaints reporting rules. Our review of complaint handling in banking groups found that the banks assessed resolved 60-80% of all complaints within this timetable.
