Complaints about regulated financial firms rose by a huge 1.7 million to just over 6 million in the second half of last year, according to new data.
Although nearly two thirds were about payment protection insurance misselling, that still leaves a shocking 2 million grievances reported by customers.
The data comes from watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, which regularly published complaint data.
Analysts not only found the highest level of PPI complaints reported to the FCA by firms, aligning with the deadline for submitting claims to firms by the 29 August 2019, but that general complaints were up 6% compared to the first half of 2019.
Besides PPI, the other most complained about financial products were bank current accounts, which accounted for 10% of all gripes; credit cards (6%) and general insurance (5%).
The average compensation paid for a complaint was £184.
Pensions and investments made up 1% each of all complaints received over the second half of the year.
Around 60% of pension complaints were upheld, while the figure was around 50% for investments.
More than 96% of complaints were dealt with within eight weeks.
Firms paid out £27.5 million in compensation over pension complaints and £34 million for investment complaints.
Read the full FCA complaints analysis
How complaints have increased
| Category | All other complaints | PPI |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 H1 | 2.23 | 1.11 |
| 2017 H2 | 2.22 | 1.55 |
| 2018 H1 | 2.41 | 1.72 |
| 2018 H2 | 2.32 | 1.58 |
| 2019 H1 | 2.18 | 2.12 |
| 2019 H2 | 2.31 | 3.71 |
Compensation by financial product (excluding PPI)
| Category | 2018 H2 | 2019 H1 | 2019 H2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banking and credit cards | 133325909 | 156880433 | 138269686 |
| Decumulation and pensions | 36718731 | 31854398 | 27526593 |
| Home finance | 18324071 | 14791357 | 14808959 |
| Investments | 32092418 | 35726740 | 34880480 |
| Insurance and pure protection excluding PPI | 46988062 | 45009468 | 47130443 |