Complaints about PPI up

PPI complaints surged in the second half of 2017 to their highest levels in over four years, the City regulator has said.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said complaints about PPI (payment protection insurance) rose by 40 per cent to 1.55 million compared with 1.11 million in the first half of 2017.

This was the highest level of complaints about PPI since there were 1.79 million PPI complaints in the first half of 2013.

The upswing follows the launch of the FCA’s media campaign in August 2017 to raise awareness about the deadline for complaining about the sale of PPI, which is August 29 2019.

In January 2018 firms paid out £415.8 million in compensation to customers who complained about PPI.

The FCA said this was the highest figure since March 2016 and takes the amount paid since January 2011 to £30 billion.

Overall, during the second half of 2017, a total of 3.76 million complaints were received by financial firms, an increase of 427,032 on the first half of the year.

Excluding PPI the number of complaints received by firms was 2.21 million, around 13,000 fewer than the previous six months.

After PPI, the next most complained about products were current accounts, with 509,047 complaints, followed by credit cards with 314,586 complaints.