The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reported that firms have improved the way they handle complaints in its latest update on PPI redress work.
Banks, credit card providers and personal loan companies have agreed to reassess more than two and half million complaints from 2012 and 2013 which they may have either unfairly rejected or paid too little redress to.
The FCA's update report said that firms have now handled over 13m PPI complaints (since 2007) while £16bn has been paid out in redress (since January 2011 - when the FCA began tracking payments).
Meanwhile, seven out of 10 claims have been upheld in the consumer's favour with a quarter of rejected complaints sending further action onto the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Additionally, 3.2m letters have already been sent to people who are likely to have been mis-sold PPI but have yet to complain, with a further 2m to be sent in the coming months.
Martin Wheatley, chief executive officer, at the FCA, said:"Making sure anybody previously mis-sold PPI is treated fairly now, and paid redress where its due, is an important step in rebuilding trust in financial institutions. In around two and a half million complaints this was not necessarily the case so, at our request, firms will be looking at these complaints again.
"The process is now working well; in just over three years £16bn has been put back into the pocket of the consumer - that is unprecedented. Given the enormity of this exercise it is no surprise that there have been some issues along the way but our approach is delivering a good result for consumers."
The FCA concluded if the long-term falling trend of PPI complaint volumes persists and firms continue to improve complaint handling, the FCA hopes to be able to "scale down its intensive PPI work during 2015."
