PPI mis-selling crisis strikes Ireland

The Irish Central Bank has launched an investigation into the mis-selling of payment protection insurance on loans.

According the Irish Independent, there are fears that thousands of policies have been sold to people who have been unable to make a successful claim despite losing their jobs.

The paper said the Irish self-employed were especially vulnerable to mis-selling because it was difficult for them to make a claim as they had to prove they did not deliberately cease trading in order to get the money back.

In October 2010 the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) confirmed that it would introduce a remedies package based around a point-of-sale prohibition for all forms of PPI, excluding retail.

Earlier this month the FOS' data for the first quarter of the financial year 2011/2012 revealed that it received over 81,000 complaints - more than double the number received in the same period last year.