The PPI deadline for getting your complaint in with your lender before it could be time-barred was August 29th 2019.
Since that date over three months have now passed and the major banks and lenders are still reporting huge backlogs in their complaints systems and stating it could take up to the summer of 2020 to even respond to everyone.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) posted this article in October 2019 and stated:
“We are aware that the volume of PPI checking enquiries and complaints sent to firms increased significantly during August 2019 in the run-up to the complaints deadline on 29 August. As a result, firms will not be able to meet their normal complaint handling times.”
Royal Bank of Scotland (which includes NatWest), has stated it may take until the summer of 2020 to clear the backlog of PPI complaints.
Barclays said it couldn’t disclose volumes of complaints or inquiries received. It added it is working to industry-set timelines for responses.
HSBC have received “unprecedented” numbers of complaints in the days leading up to the deadline and is “working hard to resolve every case received as quickly as possible”.
Lloyds have stated their timeframe for a response “may take longer than usual” and added that if a customer has submitted a complaint and not heard a response yet, they do need to do anything and will be in touch as soon as possible.
Nationwide stated that on the deadline day itself they received 60,000 enquiries and over 5,000 complaints. Nationwide confirmed that any enquiry that was found to have PPI was automatically converted to a complaint.
Santander received 4.1 million PPI enquiries in August 2019 alone.
No financial loss to the customer will happen because of the delay though, if the complaint is upheld, 8% is added for every year since the policy was sold, right up until the date the complaint is finalised.
As some customers will be waiting more than 6 months from the date of their complaint for a final decision, once those 6 months have passed, they have the right to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Barclays total provision for PPI redress now stands at £11 billion, with £1.4 billion of that being added late in 2019 due to the massive upswing in complaints they received as the deadline date came round.
HSBC stated that from 30th June 2019 all their PPI inquiries were automatically converted to complaints if it was discovered that the consumer did have a PPI policy. Not all major lenders have opted to do this, with some of them letting their customers know they had PPI, but not actually investigating the mis-sale of it and expecting customers to then make a complaint themselves on top of the inquiry.
If your lender did this and you subsequently missed the PPI deadline, you do still have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, who have the final say on whether your lender should consider your complaint or not.
The HSBC PPI compensation provision total is now at £4.7 billion, with £835 million still yet to be paid out. £315 million of this was added in 2019 due to the big upswing in complaints towards the deadline.
Lloyds have the biggest provision of all the lenders for PPI redress, totalling a whopping £21.8 billion.
If you’re getting impatient waiting for your lender to respond to your PPI complaint, our advice would be to just sit tight and wait for them to get to you. If 6 months or more has passed since you made your initial complaint and you’re yet to receive your final decision on the case, you do have the right to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS tend to have bigger backlogs than the banks themselves, so by the time your complaint with the FOS has been seen, chances are that your lender will have responded to your initial complaint with their final decision.
Our advice is to simply wait until your lender responds. If the complaint is to be upheld, you’re earning 8% interest on it, so no money is lost!