Financial services firms in the U.K. received more than three million complaints and paid £1.9 billion in consumer redress in the second half of 2016, according to new data the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) released on Wednesday.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) was the product that drew the most complaints, accounting for almost 900,000, and accounted for £1.6 billion of the redress paid to consumers in the second half of 2016, according to the FCA’s report, which is based on the complaints that firms reported under new complaint-handling rules that took effect in June 2016.
The new data on industry complaints are more informative because they provide greater insight into the products that consumers complain about, and they show the number of complaints against size of the business, the FCA’s report states.
“Greater transparency of complaints information will enable consumers looking to invest or buy products to be better informed about the products that have caused concern for other consumers,” the report notes.
“Consumers want a simple way to complain that does not leave them out of pocket,” says Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition with the FCA, in a statement. “And they want to be assured that their concerns will be dealt with fairly and quickly. These data will provide us with improved intelligence on complaints including new detailed data to show where industry is potentially failing consumers at product level.”