Issues ›
Payment delayed or failed
Transfers or payments that were late, failed, or sent to the wrong place.
6,872banking decisions on this issue
31.3%upheld where an outcome is recorded
25firms with 20+ decisions here
Rules the ombudsman applied
Derived from the rules actually cited in these decisions, ranked by how often they appear — not from an editorial view of which rules matter.
FCA DISP (Dispute Resolution) · cited in 93
How firms must handle complaints and how the Ombudsman decides them.
Payment Services Regulations 2017 · cited in 89
Governs how payment firms must handle authorised and unauthorised payments, including liability for unauthorised transactions.
Consumer Credit Act 1974 · cited in 69
Consumer credit rights, including Section 75 joint liability for card purchases.
FCA Consumer Duty (PRIN 2A) · cited in 25
Requires firms to deliver good outcomes for retail customers.
Equality Act 2010 · cited in 23
Duties toward customers with protected characteristics, including reasonable adjustments.
Money Laundering Regulations 2017 · cited in 9
Anti-money-laundering duties that drive account checks, freezes and closures.
Which firms lose on this
| Firm | Decisions | Upheld | Uphold rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Santander UK Plc | 467 | 142 | 30.4% |
| National Westminster Bank Plc | 345 | 96 | 27.8% |
| Barclays Bank Plc | 312 | 93 | 29.8% |
| Bank of Scotland Plc | 290 | 62 | 21.4% |
| Barclays Bank UK PLC | 287 | 109 | 38.0% |
| Nationwide Building Society | 282 | 89 | 31.6% |
| HSBC UK Bank Plc | 257 | 89 | 34.6% |
| Lloyds Bank PLC | 239 | 57 | 23.8% |
| HSBC Bank plc | 221 | 58 | 26.2% |
| TSB Bank plc | 160 | 60 | 37.5% |
| Clydesdale Bank Plc | 77 | 25 | 32.5% |
| National Savings and Investments | 64 | 33 | 51.6% |
| Revolut Limited | 64 | 26 | 40.6% |
| Co-operative Bank Financial Advisers Limited | 61 | 17 | 27.9% |
| Metro Bank PLC | 54 | 20 | 37.0% |
| Bank of Ireland (UK) Plc | 45 | 23 | 51.1% |
| NewDay Ltd | 41 | 27 | 65.9% |
| MONZO BANK LIMITED | 40 | 10 | 25.0% |
| Starling Bank Limited | 35 | 11 | 31.4% |
| Tesco Personal Finance Limited | 33 | 11 | 33.3% |
| Wise Payments Limited | 29 | 11 | 37.9% |
| Halifax Limited | 29 | 7 | 24.1% |
| American Express Services Europe Limited | 23 | 6 | 26.1% |
| Sainsbury's Bank Plc | 20 | 6 | 30.0% |
| Virgin Money plc | 20 | 10 | 50.0% |
Firms with fewer than 20 decisions on this issue are excluded — the rate would not mean anything.
In the ombudsman’s words
It isn’t clear why six payments to one of Mrs B’s creditors weren’t paid, but I can see that Mr and Mrs B made the payments to UKMS as agreed.
TSB has acknowledged it took too long to return the payment back to source
It didn’t do so. Mr L contacted it again and was asked to provide evidence of where the money had been paid in from, which he did. After further delays AMEX explained that the funds were not transferred back to his other credit card because the bank details didn’t match their records. But Mr L wanted the money to be transferred to his current account. After further delays by AMEX
the complaint Mrs S says TSB Bank plc’s IT problems had an impact on her.
Quotes are shown only where the exact wording was verified against the decision text.
The US counterpart
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) runs a separate complaint database for American consumers. We map its issue labels onto this issue ourselves — the CFPB does not — and the two datasets are not comparable: UK figures above are ombudsman decisions with an adjudicated outcome, while these are complaints made to a US regulator, most of which are never adjudicated. A count of one is not a count of the other, so no rate, percentage or ratio is calculated between them.
The CFPB recorded 30,394 complaints mapped to this issue, received between September 2022 and October 2026, across all US consumer financial products.
Most common CFPB issue labels within this mapping:
Trouble during payment process — 30,394 complaints
Source: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, not scoped to banking — the CFPB’s complaint categories span all consumer financial products, not just banking.