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Lloyds, Barclays and Santander named most complained about banks

In an attempt to make banks deal with customer complaints more fairly and promptly, the Financial Services Authority has today proposed changes to its complaints handling rules.

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by Victoria Bischoff on Sep 30, 2010 at 13:03

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Lloyds, Barclays and Santander are the most complained about banks on the high street, a new list of data revealed today.

Lloyds Banking Group received a total of 288,717 complaints across business areas in the first half of this year, Barclays received 259,266 and Santander received 244,978.

However, the data also shows that Santander received the most new complaints about banking in the first six months of 2010, with 216,158. This was more than double what Lloyds received.

Santander was also the worst of all the big high street banks at dealing with complaints within the recommended eight week period, closing just 46%.

What the banks say

Lloyds claim they received the highest total number of complaints because they are the biggest bank, with the most customers.

A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group said: ‘Our relationship with our customers is at the heart of our business and we take all feedback very seriously. Like every organisation we know there are areas where we can improve and we’re working with our customers to do just that’.

‘The vast majority of our customers are happy with the service we provide and this is reflected in the low number of complaints we receive relative to the high number of accounts our customers hold,’ Lloyds added.

Meanwhile Santander, which has come under increasing pressure in recent months for the poor quality of its customer service, said the number of complaints it received in the six month period to June 2010 was actually down 7% on the same period in 2009.

Steve Williams, director of service quality and complaints, said: ‘While we acknowledge we still have much to do, we are pleased that the processes we have put in place to improve service has led to a reduction in the numbers of complaints and that the FOS uphold rate suggests that we are being fair in our assessment when things go wrong’.

The new list

This is the first time a list compiling the amount of complaints received by each bank has been published by the FSA.

The Financial Services Authority hopes by naming and shaming individual banks it will encourage firms to do more to handle complaints more fairly and promptly.

The list is also intended to make it easier for people to compare how different firms deal with customer complaints, as all the information is now in one place rather than on the different websites of individual banks.

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12 comments so far. Why not have your say?

From my HSBC i can send money to family or friends (don't ask) and it takes about 2 hours to get into their accounts. I have just recieve by first wage into my Santander account today, the same transactions take 4 days to complete!!!! WHY WHY WHY?

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my first wage even

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Santander haven't even had the politeness/intelligence to inform me that my sort code has changed - you can imagine the problems this has caused me!

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I don't know which planet Steve Williams of Santander is on, because on this earth, his new processes are being ignored by his own people and his organisation's competence and possible dishonesty in dealing with my wife's complaint over the last 3 months has been nothing short of scandalous. It's about time the banks were fined £1000 by the FSA per complaint that's not resolved within 4 weeks, and should any complaint take more than 6 weeks, the customer is automatically compensated by a minimum of £1000. That would make them get off their backsides and sort it out. "FSA Hoping" is franky ridiculous. Money talks - only money..

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I guess there aren't many other banks left any more to complain about in any event!

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Take a new look at NatWest, they are trying very hard and gradually succeeding.

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HSBC are the best of the bad bunch in my humble opinion, both for business and personal purposes (I am quite sure there are horror stories though). NatWest are repeatedly being dragged over coals for putting old people in inflexible and unsuitable savings bonds (they have some of the worst in the market), I will not align myself to such immorality

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JohnnyM - great idea ! I've been trying, not hard enough it's true, to stop Lloyds ripping off my old and incompetent sister-in-law for FIVE YEARS now. Each time I complain verbally they ignore me / refer me elsewhere / kick it into long grass. Hit 'em where it hurts, in their bottom lines. It's the only language they understand.

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And why haven't the FSA fined any of them yet for having insufficient sytems and controls in place?

After 2012 new FSA regulations will allow banks offering financial products to get away with even more bad practice.

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Between myself and spouse we bank with several banks. Over the years we have had problems with all of them. Morality and ethics do not exist, only the bottom line matters.

Unless their incompetence hits the bottom line, things will not improve to any extent. I go along with Johnny M.

How about this for morality.

Refusing to open bank accounts for people, because of a credit "default" even when they do not ask for credit, OR refusing them any credit whatsoever for the same reason, whilst maintaining there is little demand for credit.

This is HSBC for you.

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PS The above is official HSBC POLICY.

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Debra Anderson

Oct 02, 2010 at 20:45

Elderly family member cashed in her Santander life savings to invest somewhere else and Santander did not sign the cheque so she cannot use it. Santander promised faithfully (yeah, right) to cancel that cheque and re issue within 2 days. Two weeks - still waiting. What a bunch of crooks. What would be the difficulties with taking them to small claims court for the money?

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