The number of bank complaints was up nearly 13% last year, but customers were right in only 2% of the complaints that were closed. Bank accounts lead to complaints

Bank customers complain more. The number of complaints registered by the banking supervisor increased by about 13% last year, to reach 21,778 complaints. But in most cases they are wrong.

The increase in the number of complaints was “due to the growth of complaints about information reported by institutions to the Credit Responsibility Center (CRC), cases of fraud in digital payments and difficulties in opening a checking account by immigrant foreign citizens.” , refers to the Bank of Portugal in Behavioral supervision report 2022 released this Tuesday.

The Credit Responsibility Center centralizes all credit operations and is where banks report loan defaults, a situation that families have paid more attention to in recent months due to the financial stress they feel from rising interest rates and the cost of living.

According to the supervisor, 20,570 complaints were closed last year, with irregularities identified in only 449 of those complaints. Which means that the complainants were right in only 2.2% of the complaints that were closed by the supervisory authorities, which is a lower value than that observed in the previous year.

In terms of the most complained about products and services, bank deposits became the main target for complaints: they rose 16.8% to 6,503 complaints last year. Here, complaints about opening an account, which include the aforementioned complaints from immigrants, stand out.

Bank deposits pushed consumer credit down to second place, as complaints rose “only” by 3% to 5,893 complaints. Payment card complaints also grew exponentially, rising by more than 20% to 2,480 complaints.

Among the institutions with the most complaints are ActivoBank in bank accounts (with 0.73 complaints per thousand current accounts, twice the system average), FCA Capital Portugal in consumer credit (with 4.79 complaints per thousand consumer credit contracts, ten times more than the system average) and Banco CTT in home loans (with 6.36 complaints per thousand home loan contracts, more than five times the system average).