New figures from the Financial Ombudsman show that disputes over payday loans have risen by 178{06aeb1921e0b802d2bd9c766bc98fb11cc6a46c2b0593ed9c88a0e29cf417a34} in the year to March despite the fact that new controls and caps have been brought in in an attempt to regulate the system.
Rules introduced in January 2015 suggest that interest rates on payday loads are capped at 0.8{06aeb1921e0b802d2bd9c766bc98fb11cc6a46c2b0593ed9c88a0e29cf417a34} per day, and the Financial Conduct Authority have ordered that stricter affordability checks be carried out prior to loans being agreed.
The statistics are released on an annual basis and show that in total more than a million people have made complaints about financial services over the past year, with issues ranging from the supply of pet insurance to problems with PPI refunds.
The Ombudsman dealt with 1.6 million enquiries of all kinds during the 12-month period – amounting to around 5,000 per day. One in five resulted in a formal investigation.
Chief Ombudsman Caroline Wayman agreed the year had been a busy one, but said her emphasis was on the people behind the complaints rather than the numbers involved.
“We mustn’t lose sight of the lives and livelihoods behind every complaint we resolve,” she said.
“That’s why preventing mistakes of the past from happening again will help restore trust and fairness in financial services.”
PPI remains a key issue for complainants with over half of the Ombudsman workload tied up with solving PPI disputes.
In total 188,712 new PPI cases were received, which equals around 4,000 complaints every week. This however, marks an 8{06aeb1921e0b802d2bd9c766bc98fb11cc6a46c2b0593ed9c88a0e29cf417a34} drop from the previous year.
Disputes involving credit, such as hire purchases or point of sale loans, was up by 40{06aeb1921e0b802d2bd9c766bc98fb11cc6a46c2b0593ed9c88a0e29cf417a34}. Not many of these were resolved within a day.
Overall, half of all complaints which were resolved were in the consumer’s favour.
Source: Sky news