A falling uphold rate on a rising caseload
In the most recent 90-day window measured by Veste, the Financial Ombudsman published 134 decisions naming Moneybarn No.1 Limited, up from 79 in the prior window, a rise of 55 decisions, or 69.6%. Over the same comparison, the uphold rate fell from 14.6% to 6.7%, a drop of 7.9 percentage points. Both windows meet Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so the comparison is not resting on a handful of cases, but a fall of this size on a firm-specific series still warrants some caution before drawing conclusions.
The uphold rate used throughout this analysis follows Veste's standard definition: upheld decisions count as one, partially upheld decisions count as a half, and the result is divided by the total number of decisions in the period. On that basis, Moneybarn No.1's all-time uphold rate across 1,419 decisions published since the earliest record on 5 December 2013 up to the most recent on 15 June 2026 stands at 24.4%, comprising 311 upheld, 70 partially upheld and 1,038 not upheld decisions. That all-time figure sits below the wider corpus-wide baseline of 28.8% calculated across 401,815 published Ombudsman decisions, meaning Moneybarn No.1's long-run uphold rate has generally run somewhat lower than the average across all firms and products in Veste's database.
The numbers behind the movement
The monthly series, spanning 25 months from June 2024 to June 2026, shows how uneven Moneybarn No.1's uphold rate has been even before the latest window. Rates moved from as low as 0.0% (May 2025 and February 2026, both months with modest volumes of 13 and 21 decisions respectively) up to 36.4% in October 2024, when 22 decisions were published. March 2026 stands out for a different reason: volume surged to 113 decisions, by far the largest single month in the series, with an uphold rate of 8.0%. That single month alone is larger than several entire quarters earlier in the series, and its size means it carries substantial weight in any 90-day window comparison that spans it.
Looking at the months either side of March 2026, the uphold rate had already been on a downward path. January 2026 recorded a rate of 26.0% across 25 decisions, but February 2026 fell to 0.0% across 21 decisions, before the March spike to 113 decisions at 8.0%. April 2026 recorded 29 decisions at 3.4%, May 2026 recorded 16 decisions at 9.4%, and the partial month of June 2026 recorded 5 decisions at 30.0%, though this last figure derives from a very small sample and should not be read as a reversal.
The pattern across late 2025 and early 2026 is one of rising monthly volume alongside generally subdued uphold rates: September 2025 saw 46 decisions at 8.7%, November 2025 saw 34 decisions at 10.3%, and March 2026's 113 decisions at 8.0% dwarfs anything seen earlier in the 25-month series. By contrast, the months from mid-2024 through early 2025 combined lower volumes, often in the teens or low twenties, with uphold rates that were sometimes markedly higher, such as October 2024's 36.4% and November 2024's 35.7%.
The longer-term, annual picture
Viewed year by year, the uphold rate for Moneybarn No.1 has declined fairly steadily since 2022. In 2022, across 152 decisions, the uphold rate was 37.5%. In 2023, across 187 decisions, it fell to 16.3%. It rose slightly to 19.7% in 2024 across 254 decisions, then fell again to 17.0% in 2025 across 277 decisions. For the partial year 2026 so far, across 209 decisions, the rate stands at 9.3%, the lowest of the five years shown and continuing the general downward trajectory visible since 2022. All five annual figures meet Veste's minimum sample threshold, so each year's rate can be reported with reasonable confidence in the sample size, though 2026 is of course an incomplete year and its final figure may move as more decisions are published.
Taken together, the year-on-year series and the 90-day window comparison point in the same direction: uphold rates for this firm have been falling for some time, and the most recent 90-day window continues that pattern rather than representing an isolated event. This does not mean the trend will continue, and Veste's data cannot say why lending decisions from earlier years are increasingly not being upheld on review; it can only describe the pattern as published.
What might be driving the change, and what remains unclear
Veste's dataset does not include internal case-level reasoning beyond the four example decisions supplied here, so any explanation for the shift must be treated as observation rather than established cause. Two things are visible in the data: the sharp rise in decision volume, especially the 113 decisions published in March 2026 alone, and the fall in the proportion of those decisions being upheld. Whether the volume rise reflects a backlog being cleared, a change in the types of complaints reaching decision stage, or something else, is not something this data can determine.
The four individual decisions supplied for illustration, all published in June 2026, show a mix of outcomes and issues. Three were not upheld and one was upheld. The three not-upheld cases each concerned irresponsible lending complaints relating to conditional sale car finance agreements, where the Ombudsman found that even though Moneybarn's affordability checks were not always judged sufficiently thorough, further or more proportionate checks would still have shown the lending was affordable at the time. In one of these cases the Ombudsman noted that Moneybarn had offered to remove an incorrectly reported default and pay £250 compensation, which was accepted as a fair resolution despite the wider complaint not being upheld. In another, the Ombudsman found Moneybarn was reasonably entitled to rely on payslips submitted in support of an application, even though the complainant later suggested these may have been altered by a third party they had engaged themselves.
The upheld example was different in nature: it concerned the quality of a used van supplied under a conditional sale agreement, rather than lending affordability. The Ombudsman found the vehicle was not of satisfactory quality when supplied under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, given a significant mechanical fault requiring around £4,000 in repairs arose within four months of a van that was roughly 5.5 years old with 71,668 miles on the clock. Moneybarn was directed to end the agreement, refund relevant payments and costs, pay £250 compensation, and remove adverse credit file information. These four cases illustrate the range of issues reaching decision, from affordability assessments to product quality complaints, but four decisions from a single week cannot establish why the overall uphold rate has moved; they are shown here as examples of the kinds of complaint the Ombudsman is considering, not as proof of any broader pattern.
Category context
Moneybarn No.1's decisions sit within broader Ombudsman categories tracked by Veste. Irresponsible lending complaints across the wider corpus, spanning 586 decisions, carry an uphold rate of 16.6%. Motor finance commission complaints under discretionary commission arrangements, a separate category with 110 decisions, show a 0.0% uphold rate in Veste's data. Goods and services complaints under Section 75, covering 517 decisions across the corpus, show a considerably higher uphold rate of 39.3%, though this category spans many firms and product types beyond car finance and is included here for context rather than direct comparison to Moneybarn specifically. Mortgage administration and arrears handling complaints, at 54 decisions, carry an uphold rate of 16.7%. None of these category figures are specific to Moneybarn No.1 and should be read as general background on how different complaint types tend to resolve across the Ombudsman's published decisions.
What the data does not show
It is worth being explicit about the limits of this analysis. Veste's figures cover published Ombudsman decisions only, which is not the same population as every complaint made to Moneybarn No.1; many complaints are resolved before reaching a published decision, or are not published for other reasons. Firms are counted using the exact business name recorded on each decision, so Moneybarn No.1 Limited is treated separately from any related entities that might appear under a different registered name, and this analysis makes no comment on any other part of the group. The rise in decisions in March 2026 in particular could reflect administrative timing in how the Ombudsman published decisions that month rather than a change in complaint volumes reaching the Ombudsman at that time, and Veste's data cannot distinguish between these possibilities.
The takeaway
The clearest, most defensible statement the data supports is this: Moneybarn No.1's uphold rate has been on a general downward path since 2022, from 37.5% that year to 9.3% so far in 2026, and the most recent 90-day window, in which decision volume rose 69.6% while the uphold rate fell 7.9 percentage points, is consistent with that longer trend rather than a sudden break from it. For anyone monitoring this firm's published Ombudsman record, the more useful signal is the multi-year decline rather than any single 90-day snapshot, though the scale of the March 2026 volume spike means future quarters are worth watching to see whether the pattern persists once that unusually large month drops out of the rolling comparison.