2,000 reasons to hate this bank

#008000;">Credited to Mark Adams of lovemoney.com

#0000ff; text-decoration: underline;">2,000 reasons to hate this bank

The big banks are receiving thousands of complaints a day as consumers take a stand against unjust charges and shoddy products - and new rules are forcing them to publish our grievances in full. We sift through the evidence to name Britain’s worst banks - and show you how to switch to a better deal Which bank got the most complaints? The secret the big banks don’t want you to know about is now out in the open.

New rules imposed by City watchdog the Financial Services Authority (FSA) now compel banks to publish both the number of complaints they receive and the number of grievances they reject - and the figures released so far don’t make pretty reading. Some banks - including giants Barclays and HSBC - have yet to issue figures for the first half of the year. But other major banks have gone on the record - and among the worst offenders are those institutions bailed out by the taxpayer at the height of the credit crisis.

The bank that received the most number of complaints?

The bank that received the most number of complaints this year is Lloyds TSB. The bank admitted this week that it received 146,846 complaints in the first six months of the year - that’s nearly 2,000 complaints per working day (1,850 to be exact). Just over 100,000 customers contacted Lloyds to report problems relating to current accounts, credit cards, loans and savings, including grievances related to overdraft charges and customer service issues. Yet most will have been left unsatisfied - according to the FSA, just 12% of all banking complaints ended in an apology or compensation. Lloyds TSB is not alone in this. Elsewhere, part State-owned Royal Bank of Scotland received 160,000 complaints a day, while the Bank of Scotland group - which includes mortgage giant Halifax - received 115,638 complaints.

Britain’s worst bank?

Perhaps the bank with the most to do to improve its customer service is Spanish giant Santander. To say Santander has experienced teething problems since swallowing up Abbey and Alliance & Leicester would be an understatement. In the first six months of the year the bank received 245,000 complaints from its 18 million current account customers, representing a higher percentage of customers complaining than Lloyds and its other rivals. The bank received 216,000 complaints (excluding bank charge refunds) relating to its current account services, with more than half rejected. The bank’s head of complaints Steve Williams was forced to apologise last week for a series of customer service lapses, including problems with online accounts being accessed and simple transactions not being fulfilled. The bank has stressed that it has suffered problems integrated its separate businesses and promised to improve standards in future