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Barclays, Lloyds and Santander are all receiving a lot of criticism in Britain right now. More customers are complaining about Barclays in particular than any other bank in the country. The complaints are mostly attributed to cases of customers being improperly sold payment protection insurance (PPI).
A spokesperson from Lloyd said that their claims would have dropped over the last half of 2010 if complaints regarding PPI claims weren’t raised. Instead, the bank experienced a 6,000 increase in PPI claims.
On the other hand, Barclays feels that they are in a good position to reduce their complaints. To date, they have already reduced their clams by about a third. However, Antony Jenkins the head of Barclays retail and banking unit said they still have a lot of work to do. They are going to take time to address all complaints regarding PPI claims and other problems customers are experiencing.
Back in June, Barclays stated that it will give all customers who filed claims that they had been mis-sold PPI before new regulations were passed on April 20 would be compensated. Barclays said this was a desire to make things right with all customers who bought PPI plans they never intended to purchase. Barclay even added that it would compensate these customers with interest. They still would make due on their promise to repay any customers who made claims after April 20, but they would have to wait up to four months.
Jenkins said that Barclay’s customers are the most important aspect of the bank’s business. They are going to do everything possible to make them happy and deliver quality services to them. The act of goodwill was expected to help Barclay’s regain some of their trust. Unfortunately, the bogus PPI claims are still a problem and customers continue to get nervous.
The number of complaints towards all banks in the UK have dropped over 20% during the first half of 2011. However, the amount of complaints regarding PPI has actually increased by almost the exact same amount. This demonstrates that banks are doing more to address many of their problems, but payment protection insurance continues to be an issue for them.
The biggest concern that banking customers have with PPI is the number of loopholes that banks can use to get out of their obligations. Customers want to have peace of mind knowing that any of their debt obligations will be paid off if they face personal difficulties. Unfortunately, the fine print on the PPI contract is often too confusing for them to figure out. Since customers don’t understand how PPI really works, many purchase insurance that won’t satisfy their needs.
Over the first half of 2011, £215m was paid to people who unintentionally purchased payment protection insurance. Many customers are clearly fed up with the stipulations banks can use to get out of their PPI claims.
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