The Ombudsman sees significant deficiencies in the firms' current attitude towards customers.
Complaints services from banks and other financial firms are getting worse, a new update from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has indicated.
The organisation suggested that there was a "cynicism" among financial services firms regarding customer complaints at the moment. Writing in the FOS' latest newsletter, chairman Walter Merricks also suggested that the banks were taking a "jaundiced view" on the issue.
Financial firms in the UK have faced very difficult conditions over recent months, as the global credit crunch has led to a sharp contraction in the real economy. Troubles associated with the crisis have led to two banks being nationalised entirely, while RBS and the Lloyds Banking Group - incorporating HBOS and Lloyds TSB - have accepted government bailout money in exchange for being part-taken over by the taxpayer.
Meanwhile, savings firms linked to Icelandic banks have entered administration, while earlier this month Scottish building society the Dunfermline was broken up by the Treasury and saw part of its business sold off to rivals Nationwide.
Mr Merricks indicated that the difficult financial conditions had made it harder for the banks to offer a satisfactory response to customer complaints. "Some in the financial services industry - currently facing significant business challenges - appear to be taking the jaundiced view that having a large number of complaining customers is just an unfortunate fact of life," he said.
"So they seem to be geared up simply to dispose of complaints at minimum cost - and with minimal attention to the individual facts and circumstances."
The FOS operates in the UK as the organisation which settles complaints made by customers against financial services firms, if agreement cannot be found between the two parties. "We find ourselves having to play the part of emotional shock absorbers," Mr Merricks commented in the newsletter.
