Lloyds heads bank complaints list

Lloyds accounted for more complaints than any other bank in the first half of the year, according to a list published by the City watchdog today. The part-nationalised bank received almost 289,000 grumbles from customers between January and June, 30,000 more than Barclays and 44,000 more than Santander.Lloyds points out that it was top of the pile because it's the biggest of Britain's lenders and that complaints came from fewer than 1% of its 30m customers.But it's the Spanish banking titan that's worst at dealing with complaints, said the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Less than half were cleared up within eight weeks, while Barclays solved 91% and Lloyds 97%.The regulator now wants to introduce tough new rules to make banks improve the way they handle moans from account holders.They won't be able to send letters rejecting complaints that don't tell customers they can then go to the Financial Ombudsman Service; a senior manager will have take responsibility for complaints handling; and remedies for common complaints will have to be put in place."Good complaint handling should be the rule, not the exception," Sheila Nicoll, FSA director of conduct policy, said.Banks will also be forced to ditch the "two-stage" rule in favour of a "one-stage" method of dealing with complaints. This means they get a "final verdict" sooner and are less likely to drop their case before it's been dealt with properly.