A falling uphold rate, but from an already low base
Between the prior 90-day window and the most recent one, the uphold rate for motor finance commission (DCA) complaints fell by 1.7 percentage points, from 2.0% to 0.3%. Over the same period the number of published decisions rose sharply, from 49 to 147, an increase of 98 decisions, or 200%. Both windows meet Veste's minimum sample threshold of 30 decisions, so this is not a case of one handful of decisions being compared with another. But the uphold rates themselves are so low in both periods that a 1.7 point move covers a very narrow range of outcomes.
The uphold-rate definition used throughout this analysis is (upheld + 0.5 × partially upheld) ÷ total, the standard measure applied across Veste's Financial Ombudsman statistics. A rate of 0.3% across 147 decisions implies that almost none of the recent cases resulted in either a full uphold or a partial uphold. Set against a prior-window rate of 2.0% across 49 decisions, the shift is real in the arithmetic sense, but both figures sit close to the floor of the scale.
The headline numbers
Across the full period Veste has recorded for this claim category, from 14 May 2013 to 15 June 2026, there have been 782 decisions on motor finance commission complaints. Of these, 15 were upheld in full, 448 were partially upheld, and 319 were not upheld, giving an overall uphold rate of 30.6%. That headline figure, built on the full historical run, is markedly higher than either of the two 90-day windows just described, which points to a change in the mix of decisions being published rather than a simple continuation of the long-run pattern.
For context, the corpus-wide uphold rate across all Financial Ombudsman decisions in Veste's dataset, spanning 401,818 decisions with a recorded outcome, is 28.8%. The 30.6% headline rate for motor finance commission complaints sits close to that baseline, but the two most recent 90-day windows, at 2.0% and 0.3%, sit far below it.
What the monthly trend shows
The monthly series is thin in earlier months and thickens considerably from late 2025 onward. Single-decision months appear in July, September and October 2024, and February 2025, each recording either 0% or, in the case of March 2025, a 100% uphold rate on a single decision, illustrating how one outcome can swing a monthly rate wildly when volumes are tiny.
Volumes then step up. September 2025 recorded 8 decisions, all not upheld. December 2025 recorded 3, also all not upheld. January 2026 jumped to 11 decisions, still with a 0% uphold rate. February 2026 saw 15 decisions with one upheld, a rate of 6.7%. March 2026 is the largest single month in the series by some distance, with 105 decisions and a 0% uphold rate. April 2026 recorded 29 decisions at 0%, May 2026 recorded 28 at 0%, and June 2026, the most recent month in the data, recorded 8 decisions with one partially upheld, a rate of 6.2%.
The March 2026 spike of 105 decisions, all not upheld, is the single biggest driver of the low rate in the current 90-day window. A month that large, sitting at 0%, will pull any surrounding 90-day average down regardless of what happens either side of it.
The longer-run comparison
Looking year by year, 2026 has already produced 196 decisions with a 0.8% uphold rate, and this year meets the minimum sample threshold. That compares with 30 decisions in 2023 at a 5.0% uphold rate and 30 decisions in 2022 at 26.7%, both of which also meet the minimum sample threshold. The 2024 figure, 8 decisions at 6.2%, and the 2025 figure, 23 decisions at 4.3%, do not meet the minimum sample of 30 and should not be treated as reliable indicators of that year's true rate.
Read across those years that do meet the sample threshold, 2022 stands out as materially different from 2023 and 2026: a 26.7% uphold rate against 5.0% and 0.8% respectively. That is a large swing across a small number of qualifying years, and it suggests the drivers of outcomes in this category have changed substantially over the period Veste has tracked, most plausibly linked to the emergence of specific legal tests being applied to these complaints, though the dataset does not itself explain the mechanism.
Firm mix: subsidiaries counted separately
Veste's dataset counts firms by the exact business name recorded on each decision. This means subsidiaries belonging to the same banking group are not combined, and two entities from one group can appear as separate rows. Six firms in this claim category meet the minimum sample size for comparison.
Lloyds Bank PLC has the largest recorded total, with 90 decisions: 0 upheld, 84 partially upheld and 6 not upheld, giving an uphold rate of 46.7%. Bank of Scotland Plc, a separate entity in this dataset, recorded 58 decisions, 1 upheld, 46 partially upheld and 11 not upheld, a rate of 41.4%. MBNA Limited recorded 56 decisions, all partially upheld (0 full uphold, 0 not upheld), for a rate of 50.0%. Capital One (Europe) plc recorded 49 decisions, 48 partially upheld and 1 not upheld, a rate of 49.0%. Barclays Bank UK PLC recorded 31 decisions, 30 partially upheld and 1 not upheld, a rate of 48.4%.
MONEYBARN NO.1 LIMITED stands apart from this group. Its 85 recorded decisions were all not upheld, giving an uphold rate of 0.0%, the only firm among the six with no upheld or partially upheld outcomes at all.
These firm-level figures span the whole period each firm appears in Veste's data, not only the most recent 90-day window, so they should be read as a picture of each firm's overall published record in this category rather than a snapshot of the very latest decisions. The gap between Moneybarn's 0.0% and the roughly 41 to 50% range recorded by the five other firms is large enough, at these sample sizes, to be worth noting, though Veste's data does not indicate whether this reflects differences in the underlying complaints, differences in Moneybarn's original commission arrangements, or other factors not captured here.
What may be driving the recent fall
The supplied evidence does not explain the legal or procedural reasoning behind individual firms' outcomes in aggregate, but the individual decisions Veste has recorded in this category offer some illustration of the kind of reasoning behind not-upheld outcomes in the most recent months.
In one decision dated 15 June 2026, concerning Oodle Financial Services Limited, a complainant argued that an undisclosed £1,055.47 broker commission on a hire purchase agreement created an unfair lending relationship. The ombudsman applied the Supreme Court's test from Hopcraft, Johnson & Wrench and found it unlikely a court would judge the relationship unfair, because the commission was fixed rather than discretionary, represented 13% of the amount borrowed, and there was no commercial tie between broker and lender. The complaint was not upheld.
A similar pattern appears in a decision dated 11 June 2026, also involving Oodle Financial Services Limited, where a £1,228.95 commission, 10% of the £12,289.52 borrowed, was found not to meet any of the three conditions that could render a relationship unfair under the same Supreme Court test. That complaint was also not upheld.
A decision dated 12 June 2026 involving Tysers Insurance Brokers Limited, concerning commission disclosure on a building insurance policy rather than motor finance, found the firm had exceeded its minimum regulatory disclosure obligations and was not upheld.
These examples cannot be generalised into a rule for the whole category. They are individual decisions, illustrating one recurring line of reasoning, applying a fixed-versus-discretionary commission test, rather than proof that this reasoning explains the scale of the recent volume increase or the low current uphold rate. The March 2026 spike of 105 decisions at 0% is the largest single contributor to the current window's low rate, but the supplied data does not identify which firm or firms accounted for that month's volume.
Comparison with related products
Motor finance commission complaints sit within a wider family of related claim types in Veste's data. PPI complaints, the largest related category with 458 decisions, have an uphold rate of 47.8%, well above both the motor finance commission headline rate of 30.6% and its recent 90-day figures. Motor finance (PCP / HP) complaints more broadly, a related but distinct category with 199 decisions, show a 1.0% uphold rate, closer to the low rates seen in the most recent months of the DCA category. Personal loan complaints, 45 decisions, show a 0.0% uphold rate, and other regulated product complaints, 34 decisions, show 19.1%.
The similarity between the recent DCA figures and the broader motor finance (PCP / HP) rate of 1.0% suggests the low recent uphold rate is not unique to the commission-specific subset of complaints, but reflects a wider pattern across motor finance complaints generally in this part of the dataset.
What the data does and does not show
Veste's dataset covers published Financial Ombudsman decisions only, which are not the same population as all complaints made to a firm. A firm can receive many complaints that never reach a published decision, are resolved earlier, or are decided without becoming part of this corpus. The uphold rate calculated here therefore describes the outcome of published decisions, not the overall complaint experience at any firm.
The year-on-year figures for 2024 and 2025 fall below the minimum sample of 30 decisions and cannot be treated as a reliable read on those years. The period comparison, by contrast, does meet the minimum sample in both windows, which gives more confidence that the 1.7 percentage point fall is a real feature of the recorded decisions, even though the absolute rates involved, 2.0% and 0.3%, are both extremely low.
The most useful takeaway
The headline finding, a falling uphold rate on rising volume, is accurate as far as the numbers go, but the practical story is less about firms losing or winning more complaints and more about the sheer scale of a single month, March 2026, dominating a 90-day window that was already running at a low rate. Readers tracking this category should watch whether the volume seen in the opening months of 2026 continues, and whether the uphold rate recovers towards the 30.6% all-time headline figure or settles closer to the near-zero rates recorded across recent months.