The 5 Big Banks That Consumers Bitch About Most
Satisfaction with retail banks is at an all-time high, according to J.D. Power & Associates. But still — we all love complaining. (Admit it.)
So which large bank gets the most complaints in the nation? The “winner” is TD Bank, which had the greatest number of complaints to million accounts — 91.4 — over the last year, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. By contrast, American Express weathered only 7.8 complaints per million accounts.
At a time when innovations and technology can help improve service and bank responsiveness, complaint activity is all the most important.
American Express, GE Financial, and Citigroup had the fewest complaints per 1 million accounts.
The CFPB makes it easy to complain — and easy to see who is being complained about. The following banks had the greatest rate of consumer complaints per 1 million deposit accounts in the category “Bank Account or Service,” according to a Bank Innovation analysis of CFPB complaint data. The period covered is the year ending March 31, 2014:
- TD Bank
- HSBC
- RBS Citizens
- Santander
- SunTrust Banks
This is not good news for these banks, but Santander, RBS Citizens and HSBC are all moving in the right direction. Santander’s complaints (pegged to Sovereign Bank last year) are down 39.7%. RBS Citizens is down 24.1% and HSBC is down 18.7%. They are by far the most improved of the country’s largest banks — but still have a ways to go, clearly.
TD’s complaints, on the other hand, are up 7.5%, and SunTrust’s are up 7%. The largest rise in complaints hit BB&T (9.3%) followed by Regions (8.7%) and US Bank (8%).
