In another positive move, banks, credit card providers and personal loan companies have agreed to reassess more than two and half million complaints from 2012 and 2013 which they may have either unfairly rejected or paid too little redress to.
The FCA’s update report also gives a snapshot of the PPI redress programme at this moment in time; it shows:
- Firms have now handled over 13m PPI complaints (since 2007);
- £16bn has been paid out in redress (since January 2011 – when the FCA began tracking payments);
- Seven out of ten claims have been upheld in the consumer’s favour;
- The Financial Ombudsman Service (the Ombudsman) has received over 1m complaints from people unhappy with the response from their provider – equal to about a quarter of all rejected complaints; and
- 3.2m letters have already been sent to people who are likely to have been mis-sold PPI but have yet to complain, with a further 2m to be sent in the coming months.
Martin Wheatley, chief executive officer, at the FCA, said:
“Making sure anybody previously mis-sold PPI is treated fairly now, and paid redress where its due, is an important step in rebuilding trust in financial institutions. In around two and a half million complaints this was not necessarily the case so, at our request, firms will be looking at these complaints again.
“The process is now working well; in just over three years £16bn has been put back into the pocket of the consumer – that is unprecedented. Given the enormity of this exercise it is no surprise that there have been some issues along the way but our approach is delivering a good result for consumers.”
