New figures from the Banking Code Standards Board have suggested a major upsurge in the number of unhappy banking customers in the UK.
According to the Banking Code Standards Board (BCSB), it received 2,242 complaints in the year to the end of March. The figure represents a worrying 25% growth on the previous 12 months.
The increase in complaints comes as UK authorities have cracked down on what they see as excessive penalty fees from credit card issues, while also taking issue with overdraft and mortgage exit fees.
Significantly, the figures show that most of the complaints refer to credit products such as loans and overdrafts and the fees associated with these services. Overdrafts made up 26% of the annual complaints to March 2006, while credit cards accounting for 17% and bank charges 12%.
However, the BCSB has played down the apparent surge in complaints, instead suggesting that the increase was due to greater customer awareness of the mechanism to complain and, therefore, that the increase was actually in the percentage of unhappy customers issuing objections.