Barclays has successfully won a review of the rules on selling Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) – a policy designed to allow borrowers to keep up loan repayments in the event of a loss of income. The Competition Commission had imposed key restrictions on the sale of PPI, after complaints that banks and other lenders had been mis-selling personal loans.

But the Competition Appeals Tribunal has now ordered the Commission to reconsider if it was appropriate to ban banks selling PPI alongside personal loans in January. Barclays appealed against the ban in March, arguing that sales had been affected by the ban because it made buying PPI less convenient for consumers.

“Barclays has always held that the ban limits rather than enhances customer choice,” said a Barclays spokesman. “We will of course welcome the opportunity to continue to work with the Competition Commission as they rework their analysis.”

The Commission imposed the ban at the end of a two-year investigation in January, after finding that PPI was too expensive because of a lack of competition between providers. It had launched its inquiry in 2007 at the request of the consumer watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading.

Sally Bowyer, Managing Director of financial claims specialist BrunelFranklin.com says that the public are slowly becoming wiser to the tactics of mis-selling, but that a lot of the damage is already done: “It is important to realise that we may all unwittingly have taken out PPI during the years when lenders were offering a seemingly endless line of credit in the form of loans and credit cards in particular. It costs nothing to check your paperwork for insurances that you may not even know you are paying for. PPI per se is not a bad product, however the onus is on the vendor to ensure the product is the best for your needs at the time of sale. If the best product for your needs was not offered, or if you were unaware of the true cost, for example, you may have grounds for a refund.”

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.