Santander reduces complaints upheld by Financial Ombudsman

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released its six-monthly complaints data relating to individual financial businesses, including Santander.

The data covers consumer complaints handled by FOS between 1 January and 30 June 2010. The data includes both the number of complaints received and the percentage of complaints upheld by the ombudsman service in favour of consumers.

Santander saw 4,881 cases referred to FOS, with the percentage resolved in favour of the customer (the uphold rate) being 19%, well down on the previous uphold rate of 47%, and well ahead of the average of all companies at 44%.   This means that approximately one in five of the complaints referred to FOS for Santander is overturned, compared to an industry average which is closer to one in two.

When all Santander's UK companies are included - this includes Alliance & Leicester - the total rises to 5,372 cases referred.

Steve Williams, Director of Service Quality and Complaints commented: "Santander takes Customer Service very seriously and so we are very pleased to see improving trends relative to the industry, in particular the significant reduction in our uphold rate. While we acknowledge we still have much to do, we are pleased that the processes we have put in place to deal with complaints suggest we are being fair in our assessment when things go wrong.

"While we are encouraged that we continue to improve our handling of complaints, we know we need to do more.  We have introduced a number of initiatives to help improve service across the bank, including investing in 600 new jobs across our busiest branches and call centres, with the aim of reducing queuing at our busiest times and improving the quality of service that can be given to each customer.  Improving service quality remains a priority for Santander."