Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Numbers released this morning by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) show that complaints during Q1 of the FOS complaints year (starting 1st April 2019) are down considerably on the same period last year.
In the first three months of this financial year, FOS received 136,681 new enquiries and 70,304 new complaints – with 12,538 complaints passed to an ombudsman for a final decision. On average, 30%of upheld complaints were resolved.
In response to the figures Jason Wassell, CEO of the Consumer Finance Association (CFA) said “We have seen a series of quarterly drops in the number of ‘payday’ complaints. That has to be some good news for our members dealing with historic cases dating back several years. However, the statistics show that this is primarily due to a reduction in complaints from CMCs, as some go through the authorisation process and have temporarily calmed their worst behaviours. Complaints to the FOS from CMCs have dropped from 8 in 10 to 6 in 10.”
“In a system where the lender pays a fee win or lose, the volume of complaints can have a massive impact on small lenders. We are reliant on the regulators and the FOS asking questions about how customer data is being passed around, and whether any due diligence is carried out on any claims. This may be a temporary respite, lenders are still on the receiving end of some very poor practice by CMCs. We also hear of other CMCs, and legal firms not regulated by the FCA, holding back complaints of questionable provenance and varied quality.”
The CFA also represents members that provide longer, instalment loans.
| Q1 2019 | Q4 | Q3 | Q2 | Q1 | |
| Payday | 4604 | 6714 | 7653 | 14578 | 10979 |
| Instalment | 1916 | 1929 | 1295 | 1878 | 224 |
The total number of mortgage complaints decreased. There were 2,501 enquires received with 2,021 being new cases compared compared to 3,456 new enquiries and 2,628 new cases in the same time frame as 2018. 26 per cent of cases were upheld while 27 per cent were in Q1 2018.
PPI as a category received the most complaints about financial products, with 31,005 new complaints. PPI made up 44 per cent of all complaints FOS received.