January to June 2018

Our H1 2018 results show that we are continuing our progress in reducing the total number of complaints across the Barclays Group. Compared to H1 2017:

• Overall, we have seen a 1 per cent fall in complaints
• Excluding Payment Protection Insurance, Barclays UK complaints are down 10 per cent
• Day-to-day banking complaints have reduced 8 per cent
  
  

Sian McIntyre, Barclays UK Head of Customer Experience, said: “We want all our customers to have a positive experience when they get in touch with us, which is why we have a clear focus across the bank to remove the reasons why our customers complain in the first place. We are pleased to see that complaints continue to trend downwards, and we will keep working hard to exceed what our customers expect from their bank.”

We meet a financial need for nearly 1 in 2 adults in the UK, so it makes sense to look at the numbers in the context of our size. For example, in the Banking and Credit cards category, we received 6 per cent fewer complaints per 1,000 accounts than in H1 2017.

We remain absolutely committed to delivering excellent customer experiences, and exceeding what our customers expect from their bank. In recent months, we have taken steps to:

Make our products and services more clear and transparent

Barclaycard announced that it would be waiving all interest charges on purchases for cardholders with a promotional balance, such as a balance transfer, money transfer or a purchase promotion. Under this new scheme, cardholders that make new purchases during the billing cycle and pay them off in full by their payment due date will no longer pay any interest on those transactions.

This marks a step-change from current industry practice, where any spending on a card with a promotional balance triggers an interest charge unless the full balance is paid.

Protect our customers against fraud and scams

To help combat phone call-based scams, this month Barclays unveiled a new feature for its online and mobile banking customers. A first for UK banking, this helpful feature allows customers to use their app to verify when a phone call from Barclays is genuine.

When a customer receives a call from Barclays and are concerned about the caller identity, they will be offered the chance to receive an alert in their app or online banking confirming the name of the employee who is calling them. The customer can then choose to accept the call, knowing that they are not giving out any sensitive information to the wrong person.

Help UK businesses to grow and create new jobs

In February, Barclays launched a £370m lending fund for small and medium-sized businesses across the East and West Midlands. Following the success of the Barclays Midlands Growth Fund, in May Barclays launched a new £500m growth fund for small and medium-sized businesses in the North of England as part of the bank’s commitment to support the Government’s Northern Powerhouse initiative.

Barclays is also making it easier for UK businesses to regulate their cash flow through a new partnership with UK fintech MarketInvoice. In an industry first, we have committed to a significant minority stake in the firm, thus investing in a platform designed to provide outstanding client experiences and help our SME clients go forward by giving them seamless access to innovative forms of finance.

Reward homebuyers for having a positive impact on the environment

In a UK Retail Banking first, Barclays Mortgages announced the launch of the Barclays Green Home Mortgage, which rewards homebuyers who choose to buy an energy-efficient new-build home with lower interest rates on their mortgage, and responds directly to the Government’s Green Finance Taskforce recommendation to support Clean Growth in the mortgage market.

The product is available to anyone that purchases an A or B EPC Energy Efficiency Rated new build home from an initial group of five Barclays partner house builders, with plans to partner with all major UK house builders by the end of year.

The Data Explained

The complaints tables below provide a breakdown of all complaints made to Barclays between January and July 2018.

The structure of how we publish the complaints data has changed compared to H2 2017. We have now implemented the ring-fenced banking changes therefore, the complaints data is now split into the below legal entities:

Barclays Bank UK PLC
Barclays Bank PLC

The complaints data is segmented across the six FCA product categories. Barclays Bank UK PLC is our main entity and accounts for the majority of all Barclays Group FCA reportable complaints (93%).

The FCA also require firms to quote the complaint volumes in the context of the number of accounts, so we have included the number of complaints we received per 1,000 accounts for each of the six categories in the first column of each table (labelled ‘Provision’). Barclays Bank UK PLC has almost 37 million accounts and Barclays Bank PLC has almost 400 thousand accounts within the Banking category. This includes all current and savings accounts, as well as credit cards and loans.

In the last column of each table we have also highlighted the main cause of the complaints, as defined by the FCA, for each category. The majority of the complaints we received were classed as ‘general administration and customer service’, which includes areas such as delays and bank errors.