Complaints about financial companies soar

Brits made more complaints about financial companies in the last three months of 2012 than they have in any full year between 2000 and 2010.

Complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI) are still pushing up the figures, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Of 180,679 new complaints made between October and December, 145,546 were due to PPI, taking the number of PPI complaints for the financial year to 244,873.

The FOS said it is currently taking on between 8,000 and 10,000 new PPI complaints each week at at the current rate it expects to receive over 350,000 PPI complaints in 2013.

Of those that complained about PPI in the last three months of 2012, the FOS found in the consumer's favour 62% of the time, down slightly from 70% at the beginning of 2012.

Since April 2012 the ombudsman has received 341,666 complaints across all products and has upheld around 47% of complaints.

Credit card accounts were the second most complained about financial product in 2012, racking up 15,433 complaints since April 2012. Current accounts came in third with 14,159 complaints over the same period. However, just 37% and 34% of complaints were, respectively, resolved in favour of the consumer.

Top 10 most complained about products

Source: FOS