LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) - Barclays received fewercustomer complaints in the first quarter, reflecting a declinein cases relating to mis-sold loan insurance, but generalbanking and mortgage complaints rose, the British bank said onWednesday.
The bank said total complaints dropped to 145,500 from210,000 in the same period the year before.
Less customers are now complaining about the mis-selling ofpayment protection insurance (PPI), for which Barclays hasalready set aside nearly 4 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) incompensation.
Banks in Britain have so far set aside more than 20 billionpounds for PPI compensation. The policies were supposed toprotect borrowers against sickness or redundancy, but were oftensold to those who would have been ineligible to claim.
Britain's financial regulator said on Wednesday that banks paid out 350 million pounds in PPI compensation in March, andthat a total of 14.7 billion has been handed out so far sincebanks started paying compensation in 2011.
Barclays said complaints excluding PPI rose by 10 percent to51,000. That included a 43 percent rise in mortgage complaints,which the bank blamed on an increase in its market share.
"Whilst total complaints are down, we've seen a modest risein banking complaints this quarter and accept that these numbersreflect historic issues we face as a bank," said MattHammerstein, head of client and customer experience.($1 = 0.5952 British Pounds) (Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Susan Thomas)