The FOS received a high of 127,471 new complaints last year, with only 5,100 complaints against advisers, down from 4 per cent in 2007/08. A FOS spokeswoman says only 30 per cent of complaints against IFAs were upheld. She says: “The uphold rates for IFAs are much lower than for other areas.”
Banks were the cause of 59 per cent of complaints, life insurance and investment providers 11 per cent, general insurers 13 per cent, general insurance intermediaries 5 per cent and mortgage intermediaries 4 per cent.
Complaints about investment-linked products more than doubled this year to 5,798 from 2,750 in 2007/08 while pensions-related complaints decreased 9 per cent in the past 12 months to 4,825 from 5,297.
FOS chairman Sir Christopher Kelly says: “As businesses tighten their belts, and the credit crunch leads to increased financial difficulty for many consumers, we are gearing up to deal with further volatility in complaint volumes.”
Dennis Hall says IFA complaint numbers are so low because they focus on building long term relationships with clients. He says: “Advisers have been much quicker to embrace fees and customer agreed remuneration structures where they generate recurring income on the services they deliver and the long-term relationships they develop with clients.
“Banks have a high turnover of staff, they are unlikely to try to form long-term relationships with clients and their focus is on sales volumes and turnover.”
There's a lesson there somewhere.....