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Watchdog in name and shame plan

4:55pm Thursday 9th July 2009

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The City watchdog has announced plans to name and shame companies that receive high levels of complaints.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) wants all firms that receive more than 500 consumer complaints every six months to publish details about them on their websites twice a year.

The information would include how many complaints had been opened and closed during the past six months, what proportion were dealt with within eight weeks and what percentage were upheld.

Firms would also have to put their figures into context, showing how many complaints they received per thousand customers, to make it easier for consumers to compare different companies.

The FSA plans to use the information to publish its own twice-yearly tables on its website.

The information will be broken down into five product areas, namely banking, home finance, general insurance and pure protection, life and pensions, and investments.

It is hoped that publishing the figures will encourage companies to deal with complaints better.

The number of complaints received by the Financial Ombudsman Service, who consumers can go to if they are unhappy about the way a firm has handled their complaint, has soared four-fold since the service was first set up in 2001.

During the past financial year, the service upheld 57% of all complaints, well up on the long-term average of between 30% to 40%.

The FSA is holding a consultation on the issue until the end of October. It hopes to bring the new regime in from the beginning of next year, with firms publishing their first data in July 2010 and the FSA publishing figures in September of that year.

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