The mis-selling of payment protection insurance remains the dominant problem reported to the FOS though here the number of complaints has fallen sharply in the latest financial year.
The latest annual report showed payment protection insurance (PPI) made up two thirds of the ombudsman’s workload in the latest year, while the number of PPI complaints halved to 204,943 from the record highs in the previous financial year.
“Since we were set up in 2000, consumers have referred a total of 2,787,651 cases to us of which 61% have involved just three issues: mortgage endowments, bank and credit card charges, and PPI,” chief ombudsman, Caroline Wayman said in the report.
In the latest year complaints about current accounts saw one of the biggest rises, gaining 78% over the previous year, with most of the problems coming from fee-paying “packaged” current accounts which saw a massive 278% year-on-year rise in complaints.
Complaints about payday loans rose by nearly a half.
Overall the ombudsman settled a total of 448,387 disputes during the last financial year linked to an array of financial products from annuities to warranties. It answered 1,786,973 enquiries from consumers which worked out to about 5,000 each working day.
Excluding PPI, it resolved 53% of complaints within three months.
