The FSA’s latest research on the sale of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) shows that, while some progress has been made, a number of firms are still failing to treat their customers fairly when selling this product.

John Howard, Chairman of the Financial Services Consumer Panel said:

""These results are very disappointing. The industry has been warned about problems in the sale of PPI before, following previous FSA investigations in this area. But it would seem that some parts of the industry continue to see PPI as an easy sale with big commissions producing substantial profits which outweigh the regulatory risks.

We welcome the FSA's message in the report today that they will take enforcement action, using mystery shopping results as well as other evidence, and will seek to increase the size of fines. I suspect there are major high street names at fault here and if that is the case I would expect to see them at the top of the FSA’s list.

We also await the findings of the Competition Commission on PPI – due to publish an initial paper later this year – to see if there are fundamental problems with the structure of this market."

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MEDIA ENQUIRIES