Financial Ombudsman Service sees lowest complaint levels in two years
5 February 2026
New cases coming to us have returned to complaint volumes last seen in 2023/24.
Today we’ve published our plans for the financial year 2018/2019, following formal consultation with our stakeholders. Our plans set out how many people we think will come to us for help and what we need to do, to give them the fair, rigorous, consistent answers they need.
Our expectations for the year ahead include:
- receiving 380,000 new complaints – including 220,000 complaints about PPI
- resolving 410,000 complaints – including 250,000 about PPI
- freezing case fee at £550 for the sixth year, with no fee chargeable for each business’s first 25 complaints
- freezing the levy at £24.5 million
Besides PPI, a wide range of issues and trends could influence the problems we’re called on to resolve – from new regulations to emerging technologies, and from changing patterns of borrowing to evolving financial fraud. In a fast changing landscape we must respond quickly and flexibly to demands for our help. So we’re investing in digital infrastructure, such as a new online portal where consumers can submit details of their complaint about a financial business, and preparing for potential changes to our remit, such as being able to help more SMEs.
More detail is in our plans for the year ahead 2018/19 (PDF 854KB).
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