Complaints against SJP up but Sesame worst advice offender

By Kirsten Hastings, 5 Sep 17

The UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) received 22% more new complaints against St James’s Place in 1H17 compared with 2H16 and, despite a drop in the number of complaints against Sesame, the network remained the most complained about advice provider.

The FOS took on around 170,000 new cases in the first six months of 2017, representing a 13% increase compared with 2H16.

Of the firms listed, there were four big advice providers: Hargreaves Lansdown, Openwork, Sesame and St James’s Place (SJP).

Hargreaves Lansdown did not appear on the ombudsman’s complaints list in 2H16.

The ombudsman also broke down the number of complaints by category. Below focuses on new investment and life & pension and decumulation complaints received during each six-month period:

Insurers

New complaints about life & pensions and decumulation were mostly made against Prudential, with Aviva and Phoenix Life rounding out the top three.

Investment

Banks topped the list of the number of new complaints about investments during 1H17.

They were also the institutions with the most new complaints; therefore as a proportion of complaints, investments were dwarfed by banking and credit and payment protection insurance (PPI) complaints.