In a move to help PPI claimants understand the scandal of PPI mis-selling and the claim process for seeking recompense, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released some case details. In total eight cases that were brought to the FOS have been made publicby the regulator which has also been taking other steps to support the ever-increasing number of PPI claims.

Resources have been shifted from other departments to deal with the overwhelming number of PPI complaints that the FOS are receiving. Last year 135 complaints were made a day with 60% of them coming through claims management companies.

A bit of interesting news for anyone wanting to get their Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) payments back – the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has released two new forms designed to simplify the PPI complaints procedure. The move by the FOS has not come a day too soon as figures released on Monday revealed that mis sold PPI claims and complaints reached record levels last year with just over 31,000 landing on the Ombudsmans door mat.

This figure is five times more than the previous 12 months and just goes to show that the banks are still turning people away who have complaints. But don’t despair, if you ever needed persuading to make a claim, check this out: The FOS found in favour of the consumer in 89% of those 31,000 complaints. The banks may ignore you, but they’ll pay for it.

Quality not Quantity – the new approach from UK banks towards unsecured lending, oh and hiking the interst rate as well, that’s the other approach. Figures released by industry analyst Defaqto revealed that a £5,000 loan wil cost you 42% more today than it would’ve 2 years ago with the average APR on a up from 9.8% to 13.9% in the same time period.

As well as loan rates, credit card interest is at it’s highest point for 12 years and all because the banks need to cover all the wreckless, care free lending they issued throughout the boom. But that’s not the only reason for rocketing the rates, mr banker also wants to pocket some extra money to make up for the all the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) policies that they can’t mis-sell or forceably include alongside borrowings.

Where you watching Prime Ministers Questions yesterday? Ok, so that’s 3 of you, but this session gave us all an insight as the PM revealed more about the new Financial Services Bill. The Bill was brought up as Brown tried to dodge a question about the bank charges test case result and in doing so he disclosed some interesting information about future finance related legal cases.

The Financial Services Bill will ring in some essential changes to the way banks, building societies and lenders are regulated, but it’ll introduce one feature in particular that’s going to make a massive difference. As a result of the Bill, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) will gain ‘Class Action’ powers that enable it to bring a number individual PPI claims together and fight their cases as one. This means that 100 people complaining about one particular bank can have all their cases and evidence put forward in one single hearing against that bank. Powerful stuff.

Heard of Cattles? They were a lender who gave loans to customers with poor credit ratings and that had been turned away by high street banks. Well, surprise, surprise: it all went the way of the pear for them; their shares are suspended and they’re straddled with a debt of £2.4bn.

To make matters worse, Karma has delivered another blow and now the sub-prime lender is facing a law suit for the alleged mis-sale of payment protection insurance (PPI). A class action has been launched against Cattles by a City institution for the misselling of insurance along with failing to pay-out on insurance claims.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) is looking for a grass, a snitch, insider info to help it’s case against the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) Companies.

To find the information they need, the FOS has gone straight the middle men, the brokers of the industry who sell on insurance to customers. They’ve been asked to supply confidential details of distribution agreements they had with insurance providers during the years that protection providers were regulated.

As is expected and despite the fact that more people apply to reclaim PPI payments every day, loan and mortgage brokers are reluctant to blow the whistle on their suppliers. They argue that this could lead to them losing their deal with the lender and restricting them further in an already limited marketplace.

Emma Parker, spokeswoman for FOS, said:

“We are asking for standard things around the commercial agreements that firms had at the time and always try to ensure that we have all the relevant, accurate information”.

As always, where there’s money involved (or a loss of it) there’s going to be a lot of arguing and indecision around the table. But hopefully, the brokers will see that their customers are the UK public, not the lenders.

According to a recent survey by MoneySupermarket.com, a quarter of the those that have it would consider cancelling their Loan Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). Plus, 6% would cancel Mortgage Payment Protection Insurance (MPPI).

These figures suggest that UK banking consumers are realising the unfair tactics that were used to sell PPI and in some cases, the uselessness of it.

Obviously, the decision to cancel an insurance should be thought about at great length but it’s fair to csay that those who have already made PPI claims for mis-selling have already decided on the value of Payment Protection Insurance

Getting money from banks and lenders is hard enough right now, never mind getting your own money back that was taken through unfair charges. But there are thousands of banking consumers across the UK currently making PPI claims because they feel they’ve been shafted by financial istitutions.

And as if the fact that you’ve made PPI payments without wanting or knowing about it wasn’t enough, the banks are now back to their old ways of paying out massive bonuses. Take Goldman Sachs for example, during the recent quarter, they dedicated 49% of revenue to paying staff, amounting to $226,000 for each of the 29,200 staff. If the bank continues to prosper for the rest of the year, employees could end up with average yearly pay of more than $900,000.

This crazy bonus and wage boosting structure can only bring us full circle back to where we were back in autumn ‘07, at the start of the credit crunch and ultimately – a recession. Have a read of this article in the Evening Standard that discusses the problems with the current banking system and shines a spotlight on some real alternatives to the way the UK does it’s banking business.

The Competition Commission has organised a consultation on the proposals for the restructuring of the Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) industry. The idea being that once the Barclays appeal is over, they can roll out the changes straight away.

Have a quick read of this article from Reuters that details the Commissions drive to make changes and push forward with making PPI a legitimate and useful addition to a borrowing (when sold properly of course).

The Competition Commission have finally come out and said that selling Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) along-side borrowings creates a lack of competition. We already know from all the PPI claims that it’s not best practice to sell PPI in this way which is why it’s being made illegal to sell PPI with a loan.

Whatsmore, by pitching a customer for PPI while they’re signing up for a loan, that customer may make a decision based on ease and convenience, rather than value for money. This is partly why lenders will have to wait 7 days from the date of agreement to pitch PPI to a loan customer.

For more about this, take a look at this article by credit card comparison site ‘CardSmart’ who discuss the sale of PPI in greater detail.