FIN.

FOS publishes 2019/20 data

FOS has published details of the complaints it received and dealt with in 2019/2020.  It received around 270,000 complaints and dealt with nearly 300,000, with the Ombudsman making nearly 30,000 decisions.  As ever, the biggest single product was PPI, with nearly 125,000 complaints, but the highest upholding rate for complaints was guarantor loans, with a rate of 89%.

FOS has not received as many PPI complaints as it expected, but thinks this is because of the huge amount of complaints businesses received just before the August deadline, so consumers still have time to bring complaints to FOS if firms do not deal with them to the complainant’s satisfcation. The current rate of upholding at FOS is only 17%.

On retail banking, the uphold rate is 50%, helped by high rates for complaints about payday and instalment loans, and the most complained about product is current accounts, accounting for 20% of the 100, new complaints. FOS also saw an increase in complaints about s75 claims for cancelled flights and holidays, even before Covid-19.

On insurance apart from PPI, motor insurance accounts for nearly one third of the 32,000 new complaints and the overall uphold rate was 30%.

Investments saw nearly 11,000 new complaints, of which over 2,500 were about SIPPs. The uphold rate was 29%.

SMEs made only 215 complaints in the year, since FOS has been able to handle these complaints (since April 2019). FOS expects these numbers to continue to increase.

Finally, FOS received 1,500 claims about CMCs and upheld 42% of them.

 

Emma Radmore