FOS

The Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA) has hit out at "spiralling" fee rises from the Financial Services Authority (FSA), Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

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.

When addressing a client's protection needs, most products deal in the term space. But with people potentially outliving these contracts, Owain Thomas looks to whole of life for rejuvenation.

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.

Given the Financial Ombudsman Service's (FOS) desire to see larger caseload contributors paying a greater share of the costs, do you think this heralds a focus on smaller companies well being from regulators?

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.