Lloyds tops PPI complaints list at financial ombudsman

Complaints about payment protection insurance continue to be made against major high street banks, data from the financial ombudsman showed, with Lloyds Banking Group a serial offender.

Of the total new cases referred to the ombudsman in the six months to 31 December, 56% were over PPI%, with 92,667 new PPI complaints, pretty much the same amount as was made in the first half of the year.

Lloyds has previously been accused of using delaying tactics to attempt to put off those claiming for past PPI mis-selling offences by its use of delaying tactics.

The fresh figures from the ombudsman showed that more than three quarters of the complaints made against Lloyds were upheld in the second half of the year.

Later this week, Lloyds´s PPI redress bill is likely to pass the £14bn mark, having hit £13.9bn in October.

"During 2015, PPI complaints finally began to approach stable levels – but we’re still seeing the volume of cases at a much higher level than many people expected," said chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman.

The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed giving consumers a deadline of 2018 to claim PPI redress, which would put an end to a scheme that has cost UK banks more than £25bn.

For complaints about financial products other than PPI, the ombudsman saw a 10% decline to 71,663.

Of the other banks, Barclays´s complaints just topped 18,000, RBS sparked more than 15,000, HSBC topped 12,000, while BoAML's MBNA and Capital One credit card providers both topped 5,000 complaints about PPI.

Outside of PPI, the most complained-about individual banking brand was Barclays, with 7,600 issues raised about its banking and credit products and services.