8 Amazing Banking Insights from 3 Mn+ Data Points on Consumer Complaints (US)

In this exclusive in-depth analysis, a banking domain expert sat down with an analytics team and analyzed three years of data from the US’ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to understand the service levels in financial services. Here’s an exclusive piece of information with points 1 to 4 on macro-level analysis and points 5 to 8 on micro-level analysis. It covers all types of financial services products from bank accounts to credit cards and mortgages to money transfers.

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1. Which states filed the most complaints?

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The State of California filed the most number of complaints at around 46,000 in 2014. California was followed by Florida, which filed around 30,000 complaints. This was followed by New York and Texas, both having filed around 20,000 complaints. The interactive chart below gives more insights on the same:

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US Heat Map Based on No. of Complaints

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2. Highest number of complaints were in the mortgage category, across 2012, 2013, and 2014 with the least number of cases in the money transfer category

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3. Sharpest increase was in debt collection and credit reporting (refer to the chart above)

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From 2012 to 2014, debt collection and credit reporting saw a huge jump in consumer complaints.

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4. Complaints by Company

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5. Complaints witnessed in Bank of America

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BofA has extensively focused on mortgage issues and has brought down the complaints in that specific area. They have also managed to bring down complaints related to credit cards.

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6. Complaints witnessed in Capital One

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Capital One has extensively focused on credit card issues (its main focus area) and has brought down the complaints in that specific area marginally. However, they have also managed to bring down complaints related to mortgages and bank accounts or services by considerable numbers.

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7. Complaints witnessed in other companies (long tail banks, other financial services companies)

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A common trend surrounding small banks is a substantial rise in the number of complaints related to debt collection. Other issues related to mortgages, credit cards, etc., have been on the rise as well, but debt collection issues have increased in big numbers, especially from 2013 to 2014.

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8. Some other macro-level trends that have been witnessed

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The above chart covers different product types and represents how long the company took to respond. Companies took the most time in addressing issues related to debt collection and payday loan-related issues. However, companies took the least amount of time in addressing credit reporting and credit card-related issues.

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The above chart represents only those issues that had more than 1000 complaints and how they have been resolved. More than 60% of payoff process issues were resolved without any form of monetary relief. While in case of late fee issues, around 50% of them were resolved through some form of monetary relief. In resolving issues related to credit report/credit score, companies hardly took the route of providing some monetary relief for resolving them.