Barclays offers refunds to 10,000 PPI customers after failing to send statements

Barclays has sent out apology letters to around 10,000 PPI customers, offering them refund.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the letters follow the breach of an order by Barclays after it failed to send out annual letters reminding customers of their right to cancel their PPI (payment protection insurance) policy.

Barclays' customers should have received an annual statement, setting out the cost of their PPI and reminding them that they could cancel.

The apology letters, sent out to all affected customers, explain the error and offer to refund PPI premiums paid out since the date of the first missing statement - as well as 8% interest - to those who cancel their policy as a result.

Barclays said a "technical issue" had meant that some annual PPI statements had not been sent out - and controls have now been put in place to stop such an event happening again.

It said that of the 10,000 apology letters sent out, only around 100 people so far have indicated that they would have cancelled and have opted for a refund.

It said just under 3% of its PPI customers were affected and the remaining 97% had been receiving their statements satisfactorily.

A Barclays spokesman said: "Last year we identified a number of Barclays and Barclaycard customers who, due to a technical issue, had not been sent their annual PPI statements.

"We have written to those customers to apologise and outline how we will remediate them where they believe they would have cancelled their policy, had they received the statements.

"We apologise unreservedly to those customers affected and have put in place a number of controls to prevent this from happening again."

The CMA said an order which came into force in 2012 after a probe into PPI means that PPI customers generally should receive an annual statement from their provider.

A compliance report by Barclays in April 2015 revealed 52 PPI credit card customers had not received their annual statement.

Further investigation into the issue revealed that, over the last three annual statement periods, a total of 9,404 credit card PPI customers had not received their statements, the CMA said.

On top of this, 740 customers on a specific mortgage PPI scheme had not received annual statements since the order came into force in 2012.

The CMA sent a letter to Barclays about its breach of the order, requiring it to provide additional reporting on its controls to ensure that all such customers receive their statements in future.

Adam Land, the CMA's senior director of remedies, business and financial analysis, said: "The annual statement was an important measure resulting from the market investigation which ensures customers know they have a PPI policy, how much they are spending on it and reminds them of their right to cancel or switch.

"Barclays has now taken the necessary steps to alert and recompense affected customers - as well as to ensure that there is no repeat in future. We trust that the extra reporting requirements we've put in place will confirm this."