MSE News: Santander is most-complained about bank, FCA figures show

innovate

girl_withno_name wrote: »

You might be able to find what you're looking for here:
http://www.fca.org.uk/firms/systems-reporting/complaints-data/firm-level

Brilliant, ta, loads of detail there. Extremely laborious though to analyse by "complaints upheld". Need to put my Excel thinking cap on to see whether I can extract any meaningful summary data.

opinions4u wrote: »

I think these figures are the most useful. I believe these exclude PPI.

Would "General insurance & pure protection complaints" not include PPI?

anoncol

Maybe it's because Santander are the most competitive, so have more new customers meaning they actually have more customer dealings. So its likely there will be more issues. That per 1000 with less competitive banks are just customers that don't do anything out of the ordinary.

Hominu

How does this compare to the daily mail article?

It's by the press, so it must be correct!

Oops, thats the 2012 version

Try this one:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270297/Two-complaints-banks-upheld-record-15-000-complaints-week-lodged-angry-customers.html

girl_withno_name

innovate wrote: »

Brilliant, ta, loads of detail there. Extremely laborious though to analyse by "complaints upheld". Need to put my Excel thinking cap on to see whether I can extract any meaningful summary data.



Would "General insurance & pure protection complaints" not include PPI?

Comparing with a statement on the LBG website, these figures seem to be " FSA reportable complaints (excluding PPI complaints)"

http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/customers/complaints_H2_2012.asp

innovate

OK, have done a bit of analysis of the data on the FCA website.

Alas, there is a lot of inconsistency in what has been reported / is being reported. For instance, "complaints upheld" isn't reported for all the institutions....

But the data available serves nicely to demonstrate that you can draw just about any conclusion that suits your cause.

For instance, if you rank institutions (Product Group "Banking" only) by percent of closed complaints upheld from highest to lowest (1=bad, 12= good), you get the following picture:

1 Ulster Bank
2 Coutts
3 Virgin Money
4 NatWest
5 BoS
6 Lloyds
7 RBS
8 Nationwide
9 BoI
10 Santander
11 Barclays
12 HSBC

If you rank the same lot by number of complaints opened,you get a completely different ranking (again, from highest to lowest, (1=bad, 12= good)
1 Santander
2 Barclays
3 NatWest
4 HSBC
5 RBS
6 BoS
7 Lloyds
8 Nationwide
9 Ulster Bank
10 BoI
11 Coutts
12 Virgin Money

So is Ulster Bank the worst, or one of the best?

Is Virgin Money the best, or is HSBC?

NB. I notice that the MSE all-time favourite, First Direct, doesn't seem to appear in the FCA numbers. Unless they are included in the HSBC numbers?

girl_withno_name

innovate wrote: »

OK, have done a bit of analysis of the data on the FCA website.

Alas, there is a lot of inconsistency in what has been reported / is being reported. For instance, "complaints upheld" isn't reported for all the institutions....

But the data available serves nicely to demonstrate that you can draw just about any conclusion that suits your cause.

For instance, if you rank institutions (Product Group "Banking" only) by percent of closed complaints upheld from highest to lowest (1=bad, 12= good), you get the following picture:

1 Ulster Bank
2 Coutts
3 Virgin Money
4 NatWest
5 BoS
6 Lloyds
7 RBS
8 Nationwide
9 BoI
10 Santander
11 Barclays
12 HSBC

If you rank the same lot by number of complaints opened,you get a completely different ranking (again, from highest to lowest, (1=bad, 12= good)
1 Santander
2 Barclays
3 NatWest
4 HSBC
5 RBS
6 BoS
7 Lloyds
8 Nationwide
9 Ulster Bank
10 BoI
11 Coutts
12 Virgin Money

So is Ulster Bank the worst, or one of the best?

Is Virgin Money the best, or is HSBC?

NB. I notice that the MSE all-time favourite, First Direct, doesn't seem to appear in the FCA numbers. Unless they are included in the HSBC numbers?

I haven't really looked at these figures in detail (good job though) - have you worked out what "complaints upheld" actually means? I assume this means complaints upheld by the bank (and figures would increase if those upheld by the ombudsman were included?

Also - is your "number of complaints opened" in absolute figures?

rb10

I think that MSE have done pretty well this time by quoting the number of complaints per 1000 customers, for banking customers only - this is something that I've said in the past when they've put out similar news items but only included the absolute number of complaints.

What would make it even better is if they only included complaints that were upheld, as that varies significantly between banks and is a more objective measure of whether the bank has actually made a mistake.

That would make their list into:

Natwest / RBS: 2.4 complaints upheld per 1000 customers
Santander: 1.5
Barclays: 0.9
HSBC / First Direct: 0.8
Bank of Scotland / Halifax: 0.8
Lloyds TSB: 0.6
Nationwide: 0.4

So whilst Santander is the most complained-about bank, it would appear to actually be Natwest & RBS who (by quite a significant margin) make the most mistakes.

rb10

girl_withno_name wrote: »

I haven't really looked at these figures in detail (good job though) - have you worked out what "complaints upheld" actually means? I assume this means complaints upheld by the bank (and figures would increase if those upheld by the ombudsman were included?

Also - is your "number of complaints opened" in absolute figures?

Complaints upheld is the percentage of complaints where the consumer 'wins' the complaint - i.e. the bank made a mistake.

Number of complaints opened/closed is in absolute figures, yes.

SailorSam

I opened my first Abbey a/c when i left school and started work. Can't say i've ever had a problem with them.

Nine_Lives

innovate wrote: »

of the almost two dozen current accounts I have

I got laughed at at work for having what i think would've been nearly 30 different current & savings account at my peak.
At least i know i'm not the only one who has a load.