CenterState Bank stands out in a LendEDU study on consumer complaints

One of the largest banks headquartered in the Tampa Bay area is among 10 banks that made it through 2018 with no consumer complaints filed against them.

CenterState Bank Corp. (NASADQ: CSFL), a $12 billion bank based in Winter Haven and with 10 offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, is among the financial institutions with no consumer complaints on file with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to a new study by LendEDU, an online financial marketplace.

The CFPB data is the most readily available resource that allows a consumer to review a bank’s customer service, LendEDU said.

The organization looked at nearly 50,000 complaints filed against 73 U.S. banking institutions in the S&P Banks Select Industry Index between Jan. 1, 2108 and Dec. 19, 2018 and ranked them relative to each bank’s deposits.

TCF Financial (NYSE: TCF), based in Wayzata, Minnesota, topped the list of banks with the most CFPB complaints about all financial products, with 11.24 complaints per $1 billion in deposits. TCF had 6.7 complaints about checking or saving accounts per $1 billion in deposits, the study found.

Thirteen banks with branches in the Tampa Bay area also showed up on the complaint list compiled by LendEDU.

In addition to CenterState Hancock-Whitney Corp. (NASDAQ: HWC), a Gulfport, Miss.-based bank with seven local offices, also was on the “no complaints” list for 2018. There also were no complaints filed against FCB Financial (NYSE: FCB), the Weston, Florida-based parent of Florida Community Bank, with three offices in Tampa.

LendEDU separately looked at the student loan complaints from the same CFPB database. In Florida, there were 27 complaints per 1 million residents, slightly above the national average, and nearly half of them were complaints about Navient Solutions LLC. Navient was the most complained about student loan company nationwide, LendEDU said.