Aggregate complaints data: 2019 H2

We use the complaints data to help assess how well firms are treating their customers and how their performance changes over time. We also use these data to guide our work in supervising firms and markets, and to highlight potential concerns with specific financial products.

• Key findings
• Complaints trends
• Putting complaints into context
• Most complained about products
• Outcomes for consumers
• About the complaints data[1]

Key findings

• Firms received 6.02m complaints in 2019 H2, up from 4.29m in 2019 H1.
• Payment protection insurance (PPI) made up 62% of all complaints in 2019 H2, up from 49% in 2019 H1 and 41% in 2018 H2.
• The volume of PPI complaints increased by 75% in 2019 H2 when compared with 2019 H1, from 2.12m to 3.71m. These are the highest levels of PPI complaints reported to the FCA by firms, but align with the deadline for submitting claims at the end of August 2019.
• Fewer PPI complaints were closed in 8 weeks by firms, down from 76% in 2019 H1 to 56% in 2019 H2.
• 50% of PPI complaints were upheld in 2019 H2, compared with 54% in 2019 H1
• The volume of all other complaints excluding PPI increased by 6% in 2019 H2 when compared with 2019 H1, from 2.18m to 2.31m.
• Excluding PPI, the most complained about products were current accounts (10% of all complaints), credit cards (6%) and other general insurance products (5%)
• Banking and credit card products received 4.2 complaints per 1,000 accounts in 2019 H2, unchanged from 2019 H1. Over the same period complaints about home finance products decreased from 8.7 to 8.4 complaints per 1,000 balances outstanding, while investment products increased from 2.1 to 2.3 complaints per 1,000 accounts
• The average redress paid per upheld complaint, excluding PPI, decreased from £200 in 2019 H1 to £184 in 2019 H2.
• The average redress per upheld PPI complaint increased from £1,890 in 2019 H1 to £1,942 in 2019 H2.

While preparing the 2024 H2 publication, we identified a discrepancy in our calculations that led to an overstatement of the total number of accounts in the ‘Banking and Credit Cards’ and ‘Investments’ product groups. This figure is used to calculate the relevant contextualisation metric in Figure 2. The updates are included in the 2024 H2 and future publications. This publication has not been updated.

Complaints trends

Chart tips: hover over data series to view the data values and filter the data categories by clicking on the legend.

Complaints received

3,253 firms reported receiving one or more complaint during 2019 H2, up from 3,179 in 2019 H1 – a 2% increase. 228 of these firms reported 500 or more complaints, accounting for almost 98% of all reported complaints, unchanged since 2019 H1.

Complaints closed 

Firms have 8 weeks after receiving a complaint to provide a written response. 

Table 1 – Complaints closed in the period

Table 1 shows that firms closed 4.64m complaints in 2019 H2. This is an 11% increase compared with 2019 H1. This was mainly driven by an increase in the number of closed PPI complaints. Excluding PPI, the number of closed complaints decreased by 1.5%. The number of opened PPI complaints was higher than the number of closed in 2019 H2 – 3.71m opened compared with 2.44 closed. This suggests that well over 1 million PPI complaints were still being investigated by firms at the end of 2019.

This is also shown in the data, as the PPI complaints were reported as taking longer to resolve on average with 57% being closed within 8 weeks in 2019 H2, down from 76% in 2019 H1. For all other complaints, the percentage closed within 8 weeks increased from 94% in 2019 H1 to 96% in 2019 H2.

Table 2 – Complaints upheld and redress paid

Table 2 shows an increase in the amount of redress paid, increasing from £2.29bn in 2019 H1 to £2.66bn in 2019 H2. This was mainly driven by an increase in the amount of redress paid for PPI, from just over £2bn in 2019 H1 to just under £2.4bn in 2019 H2. Excluding PPI, redress decreased from £284m in 2019 H1 to £263m in 2019 H2.

Average redress per complaint upheld also increased from £961 in 2019 H1 to £1,063 in 2019 H2. Again, this was mainly caused by an increase in the average PPI redress per PPI complaint upheld increasing from £1,890 in 2019 H1 to £1,942 in 2019 H2. Excluding PPI, average redress per complaint upheld decreased from £200 in 2019 H1 to £184 in 2019 H2.

As a proportion of closed complaints, fewer complaints were upheld in 2019 H2 compared with 2019 H1. 50% of PPI complaints were upheld in 2019 H2 compared with 54% in 2019 H1 and down from 63% in 2018 H2.

Putting complaints into context

As well as looking at overall complaints volumes, we look at the number of complaints as a proportion of the total number of products to which they relate. This shows the number of complaints in relation to the size of each market or firm. We record complaints per 1,000 accounts or policies in force. This improves our comparison and benchmarking of complaints across different firms. This is shown in our firm specific data.   Find out more about the contextualised complaints data submitted by firms[2]. 

Table 3 – Contextualised complaints by product group

Table 3 shows the insurance and pure protection complaints make up 76% of all complaints, up from 67% in 2019 H1 with the majority of complaints in this product group, 81% of insurance and pure protection complaints, being related to PPI. This has led to an increase in insurance and pure protection complaints per 1,000 policies in force – increasing from 11 in 2019 H1 to 17.6 in 2019 H2.

Most complained about products

Table 4 – The 5 most complained about products in 2019 H2

*This increase is mainly caused by an increase in the number of complaints received by one firm

Table 4 shows the 5 most complained about products in 2019 H2 and how the volume of complaints received has changed since the previous period. While the volume of complaints for current accounts has increased by 4% since 2019 H1, the volume of complaints about credit cards has decreased by 5% over the same period. The complaints about other general insurance products have increased by 58% mainly caused by an increase in the number of complaints to one firm.

The table also shows the percentage of complaints closed within 3 days for which current accounts continue to have the highest percentage at 67%.

Outcomes for consumers

This section looks at the outcomes of complaints, redress paid and complaints upheld, in 2019 H2 across the different product groups, compared to previous periods. 

Redress paid by product group

Average redress per upheld complaint

Percentage of complaints upheld by product group

Copyright

The data on this page is available under the terms of the Open Government Licence[3].