Earlier today the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) released a damning report that warns there are still substantial and continuing risks that financial services will be mis-sold because too little has been done to tackle the cultural problems behind mis-selling. The Committee’s report urges the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Treasury to “do more to know how much mis-selling is happening now, and which regulatory activities work best to prevent it”. However the report makes little to no criticism of the banks, the fact that the scandal was due to their greed and that they have made little to no effort to help rectify it for customers. It also goes on to deflect away from the real issue by pointing the finger at CMCs. The full article can be read here.

As a founding member of the Alliance of Claims Companies we are hugely disappointed at the outcome of this report. Simon Evans, the Chief Executive of the ACC said, “It is disappointing that the Public Accounts Committee’s Report, in its very first recommendation, has made a fundamental misunderstanding of the process for reclaiming mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance.” He continues, “The real scandal here is the scale of the mis-selling, and the continued resistance of banks and others to properly compensate consumers in a timely fashion. Claims management companies have an important role to play in bringing financial institutions to account for their malpractice, and will continue to do so.”

We, along with We Fight Any Claim, The Claims Guys and Brunel Franklin, formed the ACC to promote best practice and excellent customer service across the claims management sector and to ensure consumers receive redress where they have been let down or mis-sold by their bank, lender or service provider.

Whilst the report urges the FCA to work towards preventing mis-selling, we ask, what are they doing to make the public aware that they could have been mis-sold and that they should check? Why are they not holding banks accountable for their actions and forcing them to redress swiftly and efficiently?

“Claims Management Companies, including those who are our members in the ACC, continue to challenge the banks over these continuing bad practices, and reclaim millions of pounds for consumers up and down the country, consumers who may well not be financially literate enough to claim for themselves.” As Chairman of the ACC, Simon Evans and his colleagues know too well that if left to the banks, the scandal would have been swept under the carpet and the banks would have retained their ill-gotten gains. The Fair Trade Practice, as a member of the ACC, will continue to apply pressure to the banks and support consumers pursuing compensation.

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