PPI campaign saw nearly 50m deluge of enquiries into lenders

A final report published today by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), on its ‘Arnie-themed’ campaign to set a PPI claim deadline, shows the flood of claims, pay-outs and enquiries that flowed into lenders up until the deadline.

The numbers reveal lenders paid more than £9.1bn of redress during the campaign, in a period that saw an extraordinary increase in consumer action.

During the final 14 months of the campaign, 8.9 million complaints were submitted, in comparison to 3.7 million in the first 10 months. Some 46.7 million checking enquires were also submitted. In August, the final month, the

FCA saw unprecedented volumes, with complaints increasing to 1.4 million.

In total, beyond the FCA’s two-year campaign, the statistics around PPI show the effect on cash flowing back into the economy.

More than 32.4 million complaints were sent to firms and more than £38bn has been paid in redress. Firms are continuing to pay redress (mostly for mis-selling) in more than 80 percent of complaints where a consumer had a past PPI policy.

The figures were published not long after banks revealed the impact of the complaints influx, including Lloyds which took a £2.5bn hit in its annual accounts.

The FCA has also used the announcement today to claim success on the campaign – which it said was recognised by 32 million people. The campaign also led to 6.2 million people visiting the FCA’s dedicated PPI website and 110,000 calls to the regulator’s dedicated PPI helpline.

Jonathan Davidson, executive director of supervision, retail and authorisations, said: “PPI is the largest consumer redress exercise in the UK’s history.

“We set out to bring the issue of PPI to an orderly conclusion and prompt consumers who wanted to complain about PPI to act. Our campaign was a success in reaching millions of consumers, many of whom were not previously engaged with the PPI complaints process.

“Firms are still handling complaints. We will continue to monitor firms to ensure that those complaints are handled fairly.”

The FCA’s more general data on complaints, published this month, shows there were 3.7 million PPI complaints in the second half of last year, as cases flooded in during the build-up to the August 2019 deadline.

Credit Strategy also reported throughout last year the dents that PPI provisions were making on banks’ profits.