The power to settle financial complaints.
The power to settle financial complaints.
For printed copies of this or any of our publications, phone 020 7964 0092 or email publications.
ombudsman news gives general information on the position at the date of publication. It is not a definitive statement of the law, our approach or our procedure.
The illustrative case studies are based broadly on real-life cases, but are not precedents. Individual cases are decided on their own facts.
June/July 2010
In May we published our latest annual review, covering the financial year 2009/2010. As well as being our tenth anniversary annual review, it was also the most detailed we’ve yet produced – and the largest – with over 130 pages of facts and figures.
This reflected the fact that last year was our busiest ever, when we:
The feedback we have received about the annual review has been very positive. As always, the document has been distributed widely across the financial services industry and the consumer advice world. The range of facts and figures that it contains reflects the diverse audience the document caters for – from overseas regulators to local credit unions – and from front-line complaints handlers to policy advisers.
Here, we present the numbers from our annual review that we are most-frequently asked about throughout the year. For ease of reference we have drawn different figures together from various chapters of the annual review into single tables.
For more details, please refer to the full annual review.
| our work – in numbers | |
|---|---|
| number of initial complaints and enquiries handled daily by our front-line customer-contact division | 3,500 |
| percentage of cases that we settled in less than six months | 67% |
| number of complaints about the four most-complained about financial businesses | 84,718 |
| number of complaints about credit unions | 14 |
| % increase in the number of consumer credit complaints | 110% |
| % decrease in the number of motor insurance complaints | 13% |
| number of ombudsmen on our statutory panel of ombudsmen | 55 |
| average number of visitors to our website each month | 210,000 |
| number of enquiries to our technical advice desk | 16,319 |
| our income for the year | £98.4 million |
| our unit cost for the year | £555 |
| number of cases where we told the financial business to pay the consumer for distress and inconvenience |
18,511 |
| % of our customers who described themselves as ‘disabled’ | 14% |
| % demographic downward shift from socio-economic group AB in consumers using our service | 5% |
| percentage of complaints received from consumers aged under 25 | 4% |
| number of complaints in 2009/2010 | as % of all complaints received | change on previous year | % upheld in 2009/2010 | % upheld in 2008/2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. payment protection insurance (PPI) |
49,196 | 30% | +58% | 89% | 89% |
| 2. current accounts | 25,252 | 15.5% | +85% | 20% | 61% |
| 3. credit cards | 18,396 | 11% | -1% | 68% | 76% |
| 4. mortgages | 7,469 | 4.5% | -2% | 37% | 40% |
| 5. consumer-credit products and services |
6,329 | 4% | +110% | 58% | 45% |
| 6. unsecured loans | 6,285 | 4% | +48% | 48% | 49% |
| 7. motor insurance | 5,451 | 3.5% | -13% | 38% | 50% |
| 8. mortgage endowments |
5,400 | 3.5% | -7% | 38% | 37% |
| 9. savings accounts | 5,033 | 3% | -3% | 51% | 64% |
| 10. whole-of-life products and savings endowments |
4,199 | 2.5% | +19% | 26% | 34% |
| all other complaints | 33,311 | - | - | - | - |
| TOTAL | 166,321 | - | - | - | - |