Paul Clark, CEO of Charter UK, a leading adviser to the banks on handling complaints, comments on the fact that complaints to the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service leapt 26% in 2010/2011 - driven by customers who felt they had been miss-sold PPI.
PPI is a massive part of this hike and this is arguably the most publicised complaints saga, driven by the media and Claims Management Companies . I think however that what we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg and next year is likely to be another record year. Considering that this 26% does not take into account the potential for millions of so far ‘unvoiced’ PPI complaints, we could see this figure doubling over the next year. Much of it depends on how banks move to remediate there PPI complaints. Key to this will be the processes and audit trails they have in place to manage and investigate those complaints . Therefore once again it will be the banks that will determine what rise in complaints the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service will release next year.
For the banks, PPI is a long term problem, one which will take years to deal with. Yet given the furore surrounding PPI, the increase the Financial Ombudsman has seen isn’t really news. What people need to now be looking at is what approach the FSA will take on regulation as a whole. I am interested to find out what the Bank of England/FSA conference tomorrow will reveal when the authorities release their paper ‘'The Bank of England, Prudential regulation Authority - Our approach to banking supervision'. It is clear that complaints handling and complaints furore are a long way from being over.
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