The bank received 251,563 complaints, with 53% of closed cases upheld in customers’ favour, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) figures show.

Insurance

Nearly 10,000 complaints were filed every day to financial institutions, with a total of 1.76 million made in the first six months of the year. The FSA figures showed that, among the most complained-about banking brands,Santanderwas the most likely of the major brands to deal with cases within eight weeks. It closed 98% of cases within that timeframe. This compared with 74% at Royal Bank ofScotland, 77% at Lloyds TSB, 86% at NatWest, 89% at Barclays and 90% at HSBC.

Complaints were dominated by those about Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), especially after banks lost their legal challenge on PPI rules in April.

PPI is supposed to cover borrowers’ loan repayments if they fall ill, die, or lose their jobs. But mis-selling cases led to new rules on how cases should be dealt with, and also created an extra bill for refunds running into billions of pounds for the banks.

Some complaints that are unresolved by the banks themselves end up with the independent Financial Ombudsman Service. It recently said that nearly two-thirds of the new complaints made in the six months to the end of June were about PPI.

Sally Bowyer, Managing Director of Brunel Franklin, stressed that vendors had a responsibility to ensure their products were appropriate for individual customers before completing the transaction. “Unfortunately, the mis-sale of PPI policies is by no means unusual. Customers may well wish to protect their loan repayments, but all too often they have been sold products that were completely unsuitable for their needs.”

Learn more about PPI refunds and find out if you could apply for a refund today! Visit the website www.brunelfranklin.com or call Brunel Franklin, free, on 0800 051 54 51.