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 2022 H2, financial services firms received 1.79m complaints, a decrease of 6% from 2022 H1 (1.91m) (figure 1).
The product groups that experienced a decrease in their complaint numbers were banking and credit cards (5%), insurance and pure protection (10%), and investments (10%).
The home finance product group saw the biggest increase (14%) in complaints received by firms, from 88,514 in 2022 H1 to 101,331 in 2022 H2.
Decumulation and pensions also saw a 4% increase in complaints from 70,200 in 2022 H1 to 73,069 in 2022 H2.
Since 2016 H2, current accounts have remained the most complained about products. However, the number of complaints decreased, from 528,850 in 2022 H1 to 500,371 in 2022 H2 (5%).
