From the Ed: Making sense of complaints data

The headlines written (including in this publication in the past) and conclusions reached are often the same: banks receive significantly more complaints than independent financial advisers (IFAs) so IFAs are ‘better' than banks and therefore undeserving of the regulator's scrutiny. But anyone aware of the demographics of the financial services sector would also be aware that some of the statistics made available by the FOS are not particularly indicative; banks are likely to receive more complaints than IFAs because they are bigger organisations with many more customers. The Financia...