Building Societies Association
Complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) about building societies have halved in 2008-09 to just 2% of all new complaints. The review for the year shows that 59% of complaints were about banks, 13% life insurance and investment product-providers, 11% general insurers, 3% IFAs and 2% building societies.
The FOS saw a further big fall in mortgage endowment complaints, but significant increases in complaints about other mortgage matters, insurance (especially PPI), credit cards, and consumer credit.
Commenting on the building society figure, Adrian Coles, BSA Director-General, said: “With 23 million investing members and 2.9 million mortgage borrowers, it’s really encouraging to see only a tiny fraction feel unhappy enough with the service provided by their building society to complain to the FOS. Treating customers fairly is integral to the culture of building societies. This is why our sector fully embraced the FSA's TCF project, which all firms had to 'embed' into their businesses by the end of 2008.
“During the year when TCF was meant to become part of firms' DNA, the proportion of complaints against banks remained constant (59% of all complaints in 2008-09 - the same percentage as 2007-08). But the complaints against building societies halved, falling from 4% (about 5,000) of all complaints to 2% (around 2,500).”
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