London: A record 2.2 million customers complained to Britain’s biggest banks in the first six months of the year, which works out to an average of one complaint every seven seconds, it has emerged.
The big high street names – Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Santander and HSBC, were deluged with complaints about mis-sold insurance, investments and mortgages, official figures revealed on Saturday.
According to the Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, the biggest offender was Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Lloyds TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, the Daily Mail reports.
Complaints leapt between January and June this year to 858,850, which was a 145 percent increase on the same period in 2011, while state-backed rival RBS, which owns NatWest, received 491,735 complaints in the same period.
Justin Modray, of financial website CandidMoney, said: “Banks seem to have a total disregard for their customers.”
“They might project a friendly face, but behind the scenes they’re pressuring staff to hit ambitious sales targets which inevitably leads to mis-selling, a key cause for complaint,” he added.
The latest figures, for January to June this year, reflect the millions of customers who have complained about mis-sold PPI. Banks have set aside an estimated 9 billion pounds to refund these customers.
Spanish bank Santander received 240,597 complaints, and HSBC 170,926 complaints, the paper said.
ANI
First Published: Sunday, September 02, 2012, 20:03