Could the PPI debacle finally be resolved? Not quite...

So, the Financial Services Authority has got tough with banks, brokers and insurance companies over payment protection insurance - and not a moment too soon. There's no doubt that the financial services industry can sometimes take the flak for things that aren't actually its fault. But with PPI mis-selling, I think they deserve everything that's being thrown at them.

OK, so not every single financial insitution was trying to fleece its customers by selling them a payment protection insurance policy they couldn't claim on, weren't told the price of or didn't even know they were being sold in the first place. But there were enough companies active in this market (and I don't mean that as a compliment) for this to be an issue for the whole industry.

What would have been nice - and would possibly have given consumers some hope that banks, brokers and insurers aren't out to squeeze them for every last penny, is if companies could have a) sold these policies properly in the first place and not behaved like they were operating in the Wild West or, if that was mission impossible, b) compensated people who had a genuine case straight away without fobbing them off and without dragging their heels.

As it is they've plainly been turning down legitimate complaints, otherwise why would the Financial Ombudsman Service find in favour of the consumer in over 80% of PPI cases? What's particularly galling is that only 30% of people whose complaints were rejected by their bank or insurer actually pursued it further by going to the ombudsman service. Presumably they thought that, as the bank/broker/insurer thought they had no cause for complaint, they genuinely didn't have - rather than that the financial company might be trying to pull a fast one.

Either that or they may have missed the deadline that means that once you've received your 'final letter' from a financial company rejecting your complaint you only have six months to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The FSA's latest move is a welcome one. It means that companies will have to improve the way they deal with consumers who complain. More than that they'll have to look at how they've sold PPI policies in the first place. But, because it can't - yet - force companies to open old cases where people have complained of mis-selling and had their complaint rejected, hundreds of thousands of others will have been turned down for compensation when they shouldn't have been.