The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released its latest six-monthly complaints data relating to banks, insurers and other financial businesses.

The figures published show that the FOS took on a total of 169,132 new cases in the first half of 2016 – an increase of 3% on the previous period. Of the total cases referred to the FOS in the first half of 2016, payment protection insurance (PPI) made up 54% of new complaints – with 91,381 new cases (92,667 in the previous period). For complaints about financial products other than PPI, the number has increased by 8% to 77,751. This includes a doubling in the number of payday lending complaints, compared to the last six months of 2015. The average uphold rate (where the FOS found in the consumer’s favour) over the six-month period was 48% – ranging from 3% to 92% across the individual businesses. 221 businesses feature in the data in total.

View FOS releases business-specific complaints data for January to June 2016, 6 September 2016