On the industry front, the big news of last week was FOS’s annual figures for 2016-17.  You can see these in full here.

They show an 89% increase in complaints about ‘consumer credit products and services’ from just under 14,000 in 2015/16 to 26,000 in 2016/17.  Of these 10,500 related to payday (up from 3,000 the year before) and 5,000 to hire purchase (up from 3,000).  Most other types of credit also experienced large percentage increases, but from low numerical bases.

The biggest source of complaints across the whole of financial services is still PPI (20% of all).  Next come ‘loans and credit’ (9%), car and motorbike insurance (8%), packaged bank accounts and other banking services (7%) and current accounts (6.5%).

Those of you who have had dealings with FOS will be familiar with the complaints directed at it — inconsistent adjudications, high and rising costs, complaints generated by debt activists, etc.  One senior creditor described it to me this week as ‘a debt write-off racket with a political agenda’.

Clearly, there are issues that need to be addressed.  CCTA will be using its well-established channels to defuse frustrations and find consensus on behalf of the industry.  We will also be using other public affairs tactics to bring the issue to the attention of the wider policy making community, notably the parliamentarians.

Watch this space.