LONDON (Reuters) - Banks in Britain should review 150,000 rejected complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI), the Financial Conduct Authority proposed on Wednesday.
Banks have paid out more than 32 billion pounds ($42.13 billion) in compensation for complaints about mis-selling PPI in Britain's costliest consumer scandal, with Royal Bank of Scotland (L:RBS) setting aside another 200 million pounds last month.
The FCA has already set a deadline of Aug. 29 next year for compensation claims, using an animatronic head of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in advertisments to urge people to claim.
The watchdog issued final guidance on Wednesday on how banks should apply a Supreme Court ruling that said a bank's failure to disclose at point of sale a large commission payable out of the PPI premium could be unfair.
This has forced banks to also deal with complaints about the high level of commission they earned from some PPI sales
"The proposed mailings will help certain consumers who have previously complained about regular premium PPI but been rejected to engage with our campaign and consider whether they want to make a new complaint about undisclosed commission before the deadline," the FCA said in a statement.
The FCA had already said that banks should assess whether they had properly disclosed commission at point of sale.
It clarified on Wednesday that banks should also assess whether the commission was properly disclosed during the lifetime of the product and remind customers about the 2019 claims deadline.