Millions of PPI cases to be reopened

MORE than two-and-a-half million complaints about mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) are to be reopened to make sure customers were treated fairly.

City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said banks, credit card providers and other lenders would look again at the cases from 2012 to 2013 to check whether they were unfairly rejected or compensation payouts were too low.

The FCA announced the review in an update which showed that firms had handled 13 million PPI complaints since 2007 and paid back £16billion since figures were collated in 2011. Seven out of 10 claims have been upheld in consumers’ favour and the Financial Ombudsman Services has received a million complaints.

FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley said the process was working well and firms had improved. He added: “Making sure anybody mis-sold PPI is treated fairly now and paid redress where it is due is an important step in rebuilding trust in financial institutions.”

The FCA said 3.2 million letters had been sent to people who were likely to have been mis-sold PPI but had yet to complain and a further 2 million were due to be sent in the coming months.