No prizes for being top of this league
Posted on February 22nd 2010
Here’s a league table you wouldn’t want to be top of. The FSA has just produced its Publication of Complaints Data report which compels regulated firms to report the number of complaints they have received, which the FSA will aggregate and put into a league table to be published on its website.
High level details are that it will only relate to firms that have more than 500 complaints in a six month period which is estimated to be about 175 firms. The start date was January 2010 with the first period ending 30 June 2010, the first report will be published in September 2010.
It will cover the number of complaints the firm has received, how many complaints were closed, % that were upheld and the % that were resolved within eight weeks. Firms will be allowed to contextualise the data against things like total number of customers or total number of policies which will help the large firms.
The consultation paper showed that firms and trade bodies were generally sceptical and that consumers groups were in favour, so no surprises there then.
This obviously is going to be painful for the big banks which due to their size will dominate the tables, but it will inevitably lead them to focus more attention onto how they handle complaints which should in theory benefit customers. The FSA also recommends that firms should publish their own results on their websites.
I am guessing there are no prizes for being at the top of this league table.
