So it looks as though the row over Payment Protection Insurance is finally drawing to a close: the British Bankers Association has dropped its legal challenge over the scandal, which means that our biggest banks will now be exposed to billions in refund claims to wronged customers. Lloyds’ decision to hold its hands up over the affair last week certainly heaped pressure on the other banks to do the same. And whatever the legal rights and wrongs of the situation, trying to wriggle out of recompensing customers who had clearly been hoodwinked would only have made the sector even more despised by the general populace. Even it will end up costing them a small fortune…
The row arose because lots of customers were sold PPI for their mortgage or loan or credit card despite being ineligible to receive it – and in some cases, without even being told about it. So it may have been a nice little earner for the banks, but there were clearly also some pretty egregious breaches of trust going on. Somehow belatedly, the FSA eventually tightened up the rules (so banks now have to inform customers that PPI is an optional add-on, and can’t even try to sell it until at least seven days after the loan is made).
The industry didn’t object to that per se, but they argued that they shouldn’t be punished for it retrospectively. Unfortunately for them, the courts have disagreed – and quite right too. Punishing people retrospectively when laws change is a dangerous game, but in this case, there’s surely no question that the banks were in the wrong in the first place – even if the regulatory framework was sufficiently lax for them to get away with it.
Besides, this is surely as much about reputation as the letter of the law. If the industry has been caught bang to rights taking advantage of its customers – particularly at a time when most of the population is less than impressed about their role in torpedoing our economy – the sensible thing to do image-wise is to hold up its hands and cough up the refunds, not fight the case tooth and nail in court.
Clearly Lloyds came to that conclusion, although some think the £3.2bn it has set aside to cover costs is a bit excessive. Barclays has now made a provision of £1bn, and HSBC a provision of £280m, while RBS said it was doing its sums to work out how much it would have to fork out. Their thinking, it seems, is that the most sensible long-term plan is to make this problem go away, by whatever means necessary. A conclusion they should have reached a while ago.
Sally Bowyer, Managing Director of Brunel Franklin, said: “We are pleased to have been able to help thousands of clients and get the maximum PPI refund they are entitled to; many PPI cases we see illustrate just how careful you need to be when taking out loans and credit agreements, particularly over the phone. It is easy to rush things over the phone and all too easy for the vendor not to make clear the all important detail of the policy. It really does pay to check the small print.”
Learn more about PPI refunds and find out if you could apply for a refund today! Visit the website www.brunelfranklin.com or call Brunel Franklin, free, on 0800 051 54 51