Piggy Bank

24/06/2011 by admin.

As the PPI complaints keep rolling in, one would assume that your friendly bank would have taken on extra staff to deal with the backlog of PPI claims they have caused in the first place.But no, they have gone to the financial regulator, the FSA, who has now granted 3 of the largest banking groups Barclays, Lloyds and RBS an extension to handle your PPI complaint.The 8 week rule has gone out the window.

If you put in your PPI complaint in say October 2010, the chances are it would have been put on hold pending the outcome of the High Court Judicial Review, and neither you, nor any claims management company could have done anything about it.Since the BBA decided not to appeal the outcome in May 2011, over 6 months of claims have been put on hold running into tens of thousands of PPI complaints sitting in in-trays.

The new FSA extension now allows the banks named above extra time in which to respond with a decision to your PPI complaint. The time allowed is now extended to the end of August 2011.That means you could effectively be waiting up to 10 months to get a response to your PPI complaint.

To add insult to injury, PPI complaints received after the conclusion of the Judicial Review, but on or before the 31st August 2011 now do not have to be responded to until 16 weeks from the date of receipt.PPI complaints received on or after 1st September but before 31 December 2011are now given an extension of 12 weeks.

The FSA does not require banks to conform to the 8 week rule again until 2012.

You would think all parties (banks, claims companies and the regulators) would now put all this behind them and just get on with the task in hand - giving the consumer their missold PPI premiums back.

Margaret Cole, interim MD of the Conduct Business Unit said “We want to see all PPI claims for compensation dealt with swiftly and appropriately”.

Hopefully swiftly means less than 10 months, and appropriately should only mean one thing, do not quibble over the customers PPI complaint and just pay them what they are due.Lets hope the next 8 weeks show that banks can put things right and live up to their promises. Is your bank on your side or a piggy bank. The jury is out.

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