Banking industry gives up on PPI mis-selling battle:
The banking industry has abandoned a legal fight over the mis-selling
of payment protection insurance (PPI).
The British Bankers' Association, which fought the case, said it would
not appeal after losing a court challenge against new rules on misselling.
Barclays Bank said it had set aside £1bn to pay compensation, HSBC
£269m, while RBS said it too would not contest the court ruling.
Last week, Lloyds Banking Group made a £3.2bn provision for possible
claims.
Peter Vicary-Smith of the consumers' association Which? said the banks
had now seen sense.
"It was a colossal error of judgment by the BBA to have brought this
case in the first place, which has even further diminished the banking
industry's reputation in the eyes of consumers," he said.
"PPI was mis-sold and complaints about it mishandled on an industrial
scale for well over a decade.
"There could still be huge numbers of people out there who were duped
into buying PPI and unaware they can make a claim," Mr Vicary-Smith
added.
Mis-sold
The banks' decisions mean that several million people may now be
eligible for a compensation payment.
PPI policies are supposed to cover loan repayments if someone falls
ill, has an accident or loses their job.
But 16 million have been sold since 2005 alone and many are thought
to have been mis-sold.
In some cases they were sold to self-employed people who would not
have been able to claim, to borrowers who were wrongly told that taking
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