The UK's Financial Conduct Authority has today fined CT Capital Ltd £2,360,900 for serious failings in its Payment Protection Insurance complaint-handling processes.

Between May 2011 and November 2013, during which time it handled 6,669 PPI complaints, the firm failed to process complaints appropriately and, as a consequence, customers missed out on redress. The average redress payment made in respect of a fully upheld complaint during the period was £5,959.

CT Capital was the parent company of a group of lenders and loan brokers and was responsible for handling PPI complaints on behalf of the group.  Between 2005 and 2008, the group had sold 31,591 regulated PPI policies, receiving approximately £63 million net in commission as a result.

Until January 2013, CT Capital operated an inappropriate policy in relation to rejecting complaints on the basis of age (time bar) which failed to take into account when a customer may have become aware (or ought reasonably to have become aware) of the cause for complaint.

The FCA, of couse, has no problems with the idea of a time-bar as long as it is the one to impose it. The regulator recently decided to offer one as a sop to the banks, with consumers being disqualified from applying for redress after 2018.

Martin Lewis, a personal finance commentator, wrote at the time: "A PPI complaints time-bar would be a gross injustice, stripping consumers of the right to complain for being mis-sold to in Britain’s largest ever reclaim process. It is staggering that there have been no prosecutions for fraud after this £22 billion racket – and now even the regulator wants to brush it under the carpet. This is an anti-consumer move."

In its annual review of complaints for 2015-16, the Financial Ombudsman Service said that it was still receiving 4,000 PPI complaints every week.