Charter UK, a provider of enterprise complaint and feedback management software, today released a new white paper that outlines the practical steps that UK banks need to be take in order to address the PPI crisis that is currently engulfing the UK financial services sector.  Charter UK is already working with a number of organisations in order to help them cut the cost of PPI complaint handling by using automation to dramatically reduce the resource overheads associated with manual systems, and therefore increase the number of cases processed each day. The white paper can be downloaded from http://www.charter-uk.com/pdfs/PPI_White_Paper.pdf

Charter’s white paper reveals the staggering scope of the PPI remediation claims that lenders are currently facing, as well as the strain that the crisis is putting on their customer care resources. Worse still, the problem is set to grow even further as banks are tasked with reviewing (and taking remedial action on) millions of additional cases. Meanwhile, the FSA has stepped in to say that firms have a duty to assess every complaint relating to PPI before deferring any cases.

Paul Clark, Charter UK’s Chief Executive, comments:
“This white paper makes the scope of this problem very clear. PPI remediation claims have now grown to a point where a manual approach is inconceivable, given the sheer quantity of temporary case handling staff required and the prohibitive cost that this approach would incur, especially in light of the FSA’s recent demand for a more proactive approach with regard to customer contact and settlement.”

“The idea of simply absorbing such a large-scale Remediation Programme into a bank’s day-to-day operations is equally unattractive, since an additional workload burden of this magnitude would completely overwhelm even the largest organisations’ complaints handling function, alter roles and responsibilities, change defined processes and systems, disrupt operations and dilute the service quality for customers needing assistance in other areas.”

In order to avoid damaging the customer experience in this way, Charter’s white paper reveals how a dedicated PPI Remediation Programme can help lenders to supplement their daily operations with PPI-focused operational case handling capabilities. To begin this process, banks will need to implement a number of robust processes to help them identify any clients affected by PPI mis-selling, and will also need start remedial action as quickly as possible in order to avoid a costly backlog of cases and to develop a proactive customer contact strategy as required by the FSA.

Charter UK is a leading expert in PPI remediation and related subjects, as the company was enlisted by several of the UK’s best-known banks to handle PPI complaints more than four years ago.  The company’s Charter Continuum system is well placed to address the PPI claims crisis that UK banks are now facing, as it provides a highly effective yet ‘lean’ solution for managing large-scale PPI Remediation Projects, and also gives banks much greater control than a generic outsourced solution.