Barclays heads UK complaints list among banking brands

More complaints were made about Barclays than any other banking brand by UK customers in the first half of the year, figures have shown.The bank received 251,563 complaints, with 53% of closed cases upheld in customers' favour, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) figures show.Other brands high on the list included Lloyds TSB (181,907), Santander (168,888) and NatWest (147,109).The data pulls together figures released in recent weeks by banks.Nearly 10,000 complaints were filed every day to financial institutions, with a total of 1.76 million made in the first six months of the year.The FSA figures showed that, among the most complained-about banking brands, Santander was the most likely of the major brands to deal with cases within eight weeks.It closed 98% of cases within that timeframe. This compared with 74% at Royal Bank of Scotland, 77% at Lloyds TSB, 86% at NatWest, 89% at Barclays and 90% at HSBC.Complaints were dominated by those about payment protection insurance (PPI), especially after banks lost their legal challenge on PPI rules in April.PPI is supposed to cover borrowers' loan repayments if they fall ill, die, or lose their jobs.But mis-selling cases led to new rules on how cases should be dealt with, and also created an extra compensation bill running into billions of pounds for the banks.The FSA's complaints figures are published relating to banking brands.The largest group - Lloyds Banking Group - had most complaints when all its brands were added together.Some complaints that are unresolved by the banks themselves end up with the independent Financial Ombudsman Service. It recently said that the largest number of these complaints, in the first half of the year, also related to Lloyds Banking Group.It also said that nearly two-thirds of the new complaints made in the six months to the end of June were about PPI. From / BBC