Bank of Scotland is most complained about bank

Bank of Scotland is the most complained about-bank, it has been revealed.

During the first half of the year, the financial ombudsman says it has dealt with 20,288 complaints about the bank. Barclays and Lloyds have also received a high level of complaints - 20,021 and 19,818 respectively. Together, the three have been the source of more than 60,000 complaints, making them the three most complained-about financial firms in the UK this year.

The financial ombudsman also noted that complaints involving NatWest have gone up by more than 50 per cent. It received 11,549 complaints during the first half of this year, compared to the 7,663 during the second half of last year.

Overall, the watchdog has taken on a total of 173,994 cases during the first half of 2015. That's an increase of eight per cent compared to the second half of 2014.

PPI and packaged accounts

More than half of the new cases – 94,000 - involved complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI). This is actually 10,000 fewer cases than the number received in the second half of last year and could indicate that complaints relating to mis-sold PPI are beginning to taper off. 

Complaints about other financial products have gone up by around 45 per cent. Notably, there has been a jump in new cases involving packaged bank accounts. These are a type of current account that charges customers a monthly fee for additional benefits like travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and card protection.

In recent years, there have been rising concerns that this type of account is being mis-sold and the financial ombudsman says there are more than 400 new cases a week involving packaged accounts.

Commenting on the data, chief ombudsman Caroline Wayman said: "Complaints about PPI continue to make up over half of our workload. And though the number of new PPI cases has reduced in the first half of this year, the decline has not been as steady or as marked as generally expected."

She explained that this in partly due to continued high levels of activity by claims managers and also noted that claims firms have been largely responsible for the increase in complaints about packaged bank accounts.