A sharp swing, but not an unprecedented one
In the most recent 90-day window tracked by Veste, the Financial Ombudsman published 110 decisions on complaints about general financial advice, up from 76 in the prior 90-day window, a rise of 34 decisions, or 44.7%. Over the same comparison, the uphold rate fell from 46.7% to 31.8%, a drop of 14.9 percentage points.
That is a large move for a category this size, and it is fair to note it immediately: both windows meet Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so the comparison is not resting on a handful of cases. But a look at the fuller 25-month trend, running from May 2024 to May 2026, shows that swings of this size are not unusual for general financial advice complaints. Monthly uphold rates in the series have ranged from 22.2% (April 2026) to 64.3% (July 2024), with several individual months moving by 20 points or more from one month to the next. A single 90-day comparison, built from just a few months of that noisy series, will inevitably capture some of that volatility.
The headline numbers
Across the full period Veste holds data for, covering decisions from 2013-04-08 to 2026-05-27, there have been 4,815 decisions in the general financial advice category. Of these, 1,463 were upheld, 587 partially upheld and 2,765 not upheld, giving an overall uphold rate of 36.5%. That headline rate is calculated on Veste's standard definition: upheld decisions plus half of partially upheld decisions, divided by the total.
For context, the uphold rate across the whole Financial Ombudsman corpus that Veste has analysed, some 399,912 decisions with a recorded outcome spanning multiple product categories, stands at 28.9%. General financial advice complaints, at 36.5% over their full history, therefore uphold at a materially higher rate than the corpus average, though this comparison covers the full period rather than the latest 90-day window specifically.
What the year-on-year figures show
The annual figures give a longer vantage point than the 90-day comparison. Uphold rates by year for general financial advice have been:
- 2022: 224 decisions, 26.3% upheld
- 2023: 291 decisions, 37.8% upheld
- 2024: 271 decisions, 43.9% upheld
- 2025: 293 decisions, 36.5% upheld
- 2026 (year to date): 160 decisions, 35.6% upheld
This shows the category has not moved in one direction over time. The rate climbed from 26.3% in 2022 to a peak of 43.9% in 2024, then eased back to 36.5% in 2025 and 35.6% so far in 2026. The most recent 90-day figure of 31.8% sits below the 2026 year-to-date average of 35.6%, which itself suggests the very latest window may be pulling the rate down from where it has sat across the year so far, rather than representing a wholly new level.
Reading the monthly series
The monthly breakdown, running from May 2024 (4 decisions, 25.0% upheld) through to May 2026 (28 decisions, 25.0% upheld), illustrates just how much this category jumps around month to month. December 2024 saw 34 decisions at a 54.4% uphold rate. The following January 2025 recorded 21 decisions at 33.3%. March 2026 was the busiest single month in the series, with 63 decisions and a 37.3% uphold rate, followed immediately by April 2026, which recorded only 18 decisions but a markedly lower 22.2% uphold rate, and then May 2026 at 28 decisions and 25.0%.
This pattern matters for how the 90-day figures should be read. The current 90-day window sits across a period that includes some of the lowest monthly uphold rates in the whole series, notably April 2026's 22.2% and May 2026's 25.0%. Rather than one dramatic event pushing the rate down, the fall appears to reflect several consecutive months landing towards the lower end of a range the category has occupied before, for example May 2025 (23.3%) and November 2025 (22.9%).
Firm mix in the category
General financial advice complaints are spread across a range of firms, and Veste's data records each business separately by the name on the decision itself, meaning subsidiaries of the same banking or insurance group are not combined into a single parent figure. Among firms meeting Veste's minimum sample of 30 decisions in this category, the ten with the most published decisions are:
- St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc: 165 decisions, 31.8% upheld
- Lloyds Bank PLC: 131 decisions, 22.9% upheld
- The Prudential Assurance Company Limited: 127 decisions, 25.2% upheld
- Bank of Scotland Plc: 123 decisions, 27.2% upheld
- Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited: 120 decisions, 20.8% upheld
- Santander UK Plc: 107 decisions, 41.1% upheld
- Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.K.) Limited: 100 decisions, 57.5% upheld
- Barclays Bank Plc: 99 decisions, 33.3% upheld
- Legal & General Partnership Services Limited: 96 decisions, 45.3% upheld
- Zurich Assurance Ltd: 85 decisions, 28.2% upheld
These figures cover each firm's full recorded history in the category rather than the latest 90-day window specifically, so they cannot be used to explain the recent fall on their own. What they do show is that uphold rates vary considerably by firm even within the same complaint category, from 20.8% at Aviva Life & Pensions UK Limited to 57.5% at Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.K.) Limited. Any change in which firms are more heavily represented in a given 90-day window, alongside genuine changes in case outcomes, could influence the blended rate for the category as a whole. Veste's supplied data does not break the 90-day comparison down by firm, so it is not possible to say from this dataset which effect, if any, dominates in the latest period.
Illustrative decisions
Veste's evidence includes a small number of individual decisions from the period that show the range of issues that fall under this category. In one case, an estate complained that Fairstone Financial Management Limited had continued charging ongoing advisory fees of 0.75% on an Inheritance Tax Service fund despite providing minimal ongoing service, and had not ensured that income tax relief certificates were claimed before they expired. The ombudsman partially upheld the complaint, ordering a refund of the unjustified fees with compensation, but declined to award compensation for the lost tax relief, finding that responsibility for tax returns lay with the client's accountant rather than the adviser.
In another case, Mr and Mrs L complained that protection insurance advice from Vitality Corporate Services Limited, recommending joint life cover and serious illness cover over 30 years to cover £415,000 of mortgages, had been unsuitable, after their son became ill and a claim was unsuccessful. The ombudsman found the advice suitable, noting the adviser had gathered comprehensive information, the indexed basis of the policy had been clearly documented, and the couple had a three-month window before the policy commenced in which to raise concerns. The complaint was not upheld.
These two decisions cannot be taken as representative of the category as a whole, still less of any single firm's conduct. They are included to show the kind of dispute that sits behind the aggregate figures: questions about ongoing advice fees, the suitability of long-term protection recommendations, and where responsibility lies between adviser and client.
What the data does, and does not, show
The supplied data demonstrates that the uphold rate for general financial advice complaints fell by 14.9 percentage points between two 90-day windows, while decision volume rose by 44.7%. It also shows that this category has experienced comparable or larger swings within its 25-month monthly series, and that its annual uphold rate has moved both up and down over the past five years without a sustained trend in either direction.
What the data does not show is a cause. Veste's dataset does not contain information on why individual cases were decided as they were beyond the illustrative examples, nor does it break the 90-day comparison down by firm or sub-issue. It is also worth restating that these figures cover published Ombudsman decisions, which are a different population from all complaints made to a firm; many complaints are resolved before reaching a published decision, and the mix of cases that do reach publication can itself vary over time for reasons unrelated to underlying complaint quality.
The takeaway
On the numbers supplied, the fall in the general financial advice uphold rate over the latest 90 days is real in the sense that both comparison windows meet Veste's minimum sample size, but it sits inside a range of month-to-month variation this category has shown repeatedly over the past two years. Readers, including firms operating in this space, should treat a single quarter's movement with some caution and look to the annual series, which shows the category's uphold rate easing from a 2024 high of 43.9% towards figures closer to the mid-30s in 2025 and 2026, as the steadier guide to underlying direction.