The Financial Ombudsman Service has said it expects higher demand for its complaints service over the next 12 months.

The Service anticipates a caseload of 210,000 complaints this year, higher than the 181,000 new cases it predicted for 2024/25 in December last year.

It said that higher demand for its dispute resolution service will be driven by everyday financial concerns, such as unaffordable lending; credit card complaints; fraud; and scams, well as motor finance commission cases which are not affected by the Financial Conduct Authority’s review of historical practices coming to the Ombudsman.

“In the year ahead it’s likely that our service will see increasing levels of complaints, with many of those disputes expected to focus on the critical issues that impact people’s everyday lives," said Abby Thomas, chief executive and chief ombudsman of the Financial Ombudsman Service. "This includes perceived unaffordable lending, concerns about car loan agreements, and disputes around fraud and scams.”

The Ombudsman said that it has made "significant strides" in the service it offers to both consumers and businesses by reducing the time it takes to resolve a case from 4.8 months in 2022/23 to 2.96 months by the last three months of 2023/24.

It has also set itself a new target of resolving 90 per cent of cases within six months.

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