The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reported that complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI) drove a 13% increase in the number of complaints made to financial services firms in the second half of 2017, according to figures published today by the FCA.

During the second half of 2017 a total of 3.76 million complaints were received, an increase of 427,032 on the first half of the year. Complaints about PPI rose by 40% to 1.55 million, the highest level of complaints about PPI for more than four years.

In January 2018 firms paid out £415.8m in redress to customers who complained about payment protection insurance (PPI). This is the highest figure since March 2016 and takes the amount paid since January 2011 to £30bn.

Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition, said: “Having set a deadline for PPI complaints, we are encouraging consumers to decide whether they want to claim, and if they do, to make their complaint as soon as possible, as many already have.

“We are continuing to monitor and challenge all firms to ensure they maintain the expected standards and are delivering on their commitments to make it easy for people to complain about PPI.

“When PPI is taken out of the mix, the numbers of complaints firms are receiving has remained stable. Firms should be doing all they can to reduce complaints and ensure they are treating customers fairly.”

Excluding PPI the number of complaints received by firms was 2.21million, around 13,000 fewer than the previous six months.

After PPI, the next most complained about products are current accounts, with 509,047 complaints and then credit cards with 314,586 complaints.  Further firm-level data are available on the FCA’s downloadable tables.

Tashema Jackson, spokesperson at uSwitch.com, says: “PPI continues to dominate the banking complaints figures, as you would expect given the big push by the regulator to inform people of the looming deadline in August next year.

“However, when you look beyond PPI to the banking and credit card complaints, the fact that the big high street banks have hundreds of thousands of customers who are unhappy comes as little surprise. Our recent customer service report showed that the biggest banks are consistently underperforming when it comes to dealing with the concerns of their customers, with Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays the worst performing.”