Is your bank rotten? Then let's hear it for the good guys.

I don't mind complaining. It's in my DNA. We'll, the weather's either too hot or too cold. The telly's always rubbish these days. And those younger moles just lark around on the river bank without regard to their elders. Not only that but the banks are in a woeful state - or so it seems.

The Banking Code Standards Board has just reported a rise in complaints against UK banks. Seems that the number of complaints in the last 12 months rose 25 per cent to 2,242 from a year earlier. Actually, that doesn't seem a lot to me.

Perhaps this increase reflects the millions of leaflets the board sent to bank customers to publicise its own existence. Perhaps, it doesn't though.

Most of the complaints were about loans, overdrafts and default charges. Complaints about loans and overdrafts made up 26 per cent of last year's total, with credit cards accounting for 17 per cent and bank charges 12 per cent, says the BCSB.

The board was created to ensure that banks deal with their customers in accordance with the banking code of conduct. Despite the increase in complaints, the BCSB said it may not signal a surge in consumer unhappiness with the way they are treated by their lenders. Oh really?

"We genuinely don't feel it is evidence of increased dissatisfaction about banking," Adrian Lloyd, the BCSB's compliance director, told the press. Then he added that he did not expect such strong growth in the current year.

Our wonderful banks have come under increasing regulatory scrutiny. The Office of Fair Trading has forced them to cut the charges they impose for late credit card payments, and recently OFT announced it would now look at the level of fees for unauthorised overdrafts.

Seymour Fortescue, outgoing chief executive of the BCSB, said that the banking codes had helped enhance the reputation of the industry but "more work needed to be done" to improve public perceptions of UK banks, "particularly when free banking and free credit cards are benefits not generally enjoyed elsewhere in the developed world".

But in my view the basic problem is that the banks don't really care much about customer service. Yes, they mouth the platitudes and even put it in their brochures. But really - and I mean really - they are there to serve the interest of the banks. So what I'm looking for is a UK bank that believes in helping its customers. I'd love to hear from anyone who's had exemplary service - and I'll be the first to give them credit. It might even make me move my business.