Record numbers of people are checking their finances for mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) with The Fair Trade Practice, with the number of our customers being offered compensation at an all time high.

Our ethical approach, which sees 98%* of all our new customers recommended to us by someone they know, has allowed us to help more customers than ever before and produce a record number of lender offers as a result.

That is in stark contrast to figures from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) showing that the total amount of compensation being paid out to UK consumers for mis-sold PPI is in fact decreasing.

Every year since The Fair Trade Practice began handling PPI complaints back in 2011, we have seen a steady increase in the number of offers being received by our customers.

Following a record year in 2015, there was an increase of more than a third in the number of successful customers claiming back money owed to them by their financial providers last year. The average amount refunded to those customers has also stayed at a consistent level during the 5 year period whilst FCA figures show an annual decline in overall amounts paid out.

In total the PPI mis-selling saga has cost UK firms more than £25.5bn so far, with the FCA still to reveal the figures for the final quarter of 2016.

Some of the biggest banks in the UK were still setting aside additional provisions for PPI compensation in the final months of 2016, with Lloyds putting a further £1bn aside and Barclays announcing a further £400m.

It is estimated that £50bn worth of PPI policies were sold in total in the UK over the past 10-15 years, meaning almost half that amount still remains unclaimed.

The FCA are proposing a potential deadline on all PPI claims for 2019 and with timebars initiated by the banks 3 million people are estimated to have lost their chance to check already.

*As at January 2016