Complaints against the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have been on the rise after several calm summer months, latest data shows.
Complaints hit a year high in October when 55 gripes were raised with the regulator, followed by 50 complaints in November, according to figures published by the regulator.
The FCA had already faced a flurry of complaints in the earlier months of the year with March peaking at 53, but it enjoyed a quiet few months over the summer, when numbers fell to a as little as 29 new complaints in August.
Overall the figures stayed constant in the year, with 246 gripes raised in the first half of the year and a further 245 between June and November.
Each complaint can contain multiple allegations against the FCA.
So far this year the regulator closed 546 allegations, of which it dismissed 47% for reasons such as "no misconduct has been alleged, the allegations were excluded, referred, deferred or outside of our scope".
Of the remaining 291 allegations the FCA did not uphold 58% and upheld 42% in whole or in part.
The FCA could not identify a single factor resulting in the slight increase of complaints towards the back of the year, it said.
MPs called the regulator "weak, toothless and anaemic" but held back from holding a vote of no confidence after City minister Harriet Baldwin urged them not to support it.
The motion had been tabled by Conservative MP for Aberconwy Guto Bebb in response to the regulator's investigation into the collapse of the Connaught Income Series 1 Fund, as well as its handling of the interest rate hedging products scandal and its recent pulling out of investigating conduct at major banks.
The independence of the FCA's board had also been called into question by an independent review published in January, which found the board's powers with respect to making independent decisions were limited, and external interventions "can have dramatic effects on the organisation".
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