Financial Ombudsman Service

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has set its budget for 2012/3 at £191.1m, meaning both the case fee and total levy will be frozen for the third year running.

The Financial Services Consumer Panel (FSCP) said it is "unreasonable" to expect consumers to understand complex financial products and services.

Bupa has become the second insurer to give further clarity about its complaints levels, suggesting providers may want further details to be published by the Ombudsman to put figures into a wider context.

The private medical insurance (PMI) market's two biggest players have seen a rise in the number of complaints escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Which? has urged banks to streamline their payment protection insurance (PPI) claim process or risk exposing customers to claims management companies, after just a quarter of the promised amount of redress was paid out in 2011.

Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) redress totals have reached a new peak after payments rocketed by more than £100m in just one month.

Protection complaints continued to rise during the year and have already breached last year's totals in some product areas.

The ten worst offending payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling firms could face costs of over £55m to enable regulators to deal with the problem.

The Investment and Life Assurance Group (ILAG) has warned that increased publishing of decisions made by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) could be a boon for claims management companies (CMCs).

The payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling scandal has cost the financial services industry more than three quarters of a billion in redress payments to customers in the first three quarters of the year.