Financial firms provide data to the FCA every 6 months about the complaints they have received, what these were about and how they dealt with them. The FCA collects and publishes data at both an aggregate (market level) and firm specific, although only publishes firm specific data for firms reporting 500 or more complaints in a 6 month reporting period, or 1,000 or more complaints in an annual reporting period.
The FCA uses the complaints data to help assess how firms interact with and treat their customers as well as monitoring their performance over time. It also uses this data to guide its work in supervising firms and markets, highlighting any potential concerns with specific financial products offered.
##Key findings include:
In 2024 H2, financial services firms received 1.78m complaints, a 4.3% decrease from 2024 H1 (1.86m) (Figure 1). Since 2021 H1, complaints have stayed relatively constant between 1.7m and 2.0m.
All product groups saw a decrease in their complaint numbers:
- Banking and credit cards decreased 1.3% from 850,983 (2024 H1) to 839,526 (2024 H2)
- Decumulation & pensions decreased 4.2% from 93,045 (2024 H1) to 89,172 (2024 H2)
- Home finance decreased 10.0% from 93,234 (2024 H1) to 83,936 (2024 H2)
- Insurance & pure protection decreased 6.0% from 764,272 (2024 H1) to 718,496 (2024 H2)
- Investments decreased 15.7% from 62,825 (2024 H1) to 52,971 (2024 H2)
There were decreases in the 3 most-often complained about products:
- Current accounts from 492,558 in 2024 H1 to 491,172 in 2024 H2 (0.3%)
- Motor and transport from 276,795 in 2024 H1 to 254,788 in 2024 H2 (8.0%)
- Credit cards from 222,529 in 2024 H1 to 217,160 in 2024 H2 (2.4%)
