During that time, the campaign was recognised by 32 million people. It significantly increased consumer awareness of the deadline, understanding of the PPI issue and how to check or complain. The campaign also led to 6.2 million people visiting the FCA’s dedicated PPI website and 110,000 calls to the FCA’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.”
In total over 32.4 million complaints about PPI have been made to firms and so far, over £38 billion has been paid in redress. Firms have continued to pay redress (mostly for mis-selling) in over 80% of complaints where a consumer had a past PPI policy. Firms paid over £9.1b of redress during the campaign.
The period running up to the deadline saw an extraordinary increase in consumer action. During the final 14 months of the campaign, 8.9m complaints were submitted, in comparison to 3.7m in the first 10 months. 46.7m checking enquires were also submitted. In August, the final month, the FCA saw unprecedented volumes – with complaints increased to 1.4m.
The FCA worked to ensure that firms made it easy for consumers to check and complain about PPI, particularly vulnerable consumers. The FCA also engaged with industry to ensure that consumers who acted close to the deadline did not lose out. This led to firms allowing checking enquiries to be made right up to the deadline and automatically converting them into complaints, where PPI was found – even after the deadline. Firms have so far converted over a million complaints in this way.
