St James’ Place Wealth Management and St James’ Place UK received 1,289 complaints over the period. Sesame in second place received 665.
Complaints against St James’s Place UK relating to decumulation and pensions totalled 465, accounting for 1.6 complaints for every 1,000 clients with this product.
The big five banks received the most complaints, led by Barclays with 446,978.
Old Mutual Wealth received 1,379 complaints, while Standard Life received 3,579.
The FCA hailed progress on complaints but acknowledged there is still a way to go.
Making changes
Since June 2016, firms have been required to report data to the UK regulator in a new way which has increased the number of complaints reported.
This is the first half year in which all firms are reporting under the new rules.
In total, 3.32 million complaints were recorded by firms in the first half of 2017. This compares to 3.04 million in the second half of 2016.
Nearly half (43%) of all complaints made during the first half of 2017 were related to ‘advising, selling and arranging’, compared to 59% in the first half of 2016.
While ‘general administration and customer service’ accounted for 27% of all complaints in the first half of 2016, they now account for 38% of all complaints.
Payment protection insurance (PPI) continues to be the most complained about product making up a third of all complaints in the first half of 2017. The total number of PPI complaints increased by 24% from 899,000 to 1.11 million. Excluding PPI, the number of complaints was 2.21 million.
The total redress paid to consumers was £1.99bn ($2.62bn, €2.23bn) in the first half of 2017. The vast majority (82%) of the total redress payments are for PPI complaints.
Fuller picture
Christopher Woolard, FCA executive director of strategy and competition, said: “We now require firms to report all complaints which gives us a fuller picture of where the industry might not be meeting customer needs. But even allowing for the change in reporting rules, and some progress made, the numbers are still significant.
“Firms need to do all they can to reduce complaints and ensure that they are working in the best interests of consumers.”
This story was originally published stating that 92.5% of complaints against St James’ Place Wealth Management had been upheld. This figure, published by and later corrected by the FCA, should have been 25.9%.
