FSA confirms 3 million payment protection insurance plans under review

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today confirmed that around 3 million people may well be eligible for compensation payments which could top £2 billion over the alleged mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI). So far the authorities have received in excess of 100,000 complaints regarding PPI and there are many more expected in the short to medium term.

The authorities have today issued new rules on how the flood of complaints should be handled and indeed what form and what size of compensation can be expected. This is a situation which many banks in the UK have attempted to delay and indeed a number of banks clubbed together to demand a review of the PPI ruling by the FSA. In simple terms, the FSA has introduced new rules which will come into play later in 2010 which will offer customers more information on PPI products, a cooling off period and the ability to look elsewhere for their cover.

However, there are many points of friction between the UK financial industry and the FSA over changes to PPI. Quite how these will impact upon the final ruling and future of PPI very much remains to be seen.