Payment protection insurance market investigation : remittal of the point-of-sale prohibition remedy by the Competition Appeal Tribunal, final report

In this report the Competition Commission (CC) confirmed that it would introduce a remedies package based around a point-of-sale prohibition for all forms of payment protection insurance (PPI) (with the exception of retail PPI) after detailing how it will benefit customers.

The point-of-sale prohibition would stop the completion of sales of PPI during the sale of the associated credit product such as a personal loan.

It was one of a package of measures the CC planned to introduce following its investigation into PPI (2009, ISBN 9780117067363), which concluded that businesses that offer PPI alongside credit face little or no competition when selling PPI to their credit customers.

The report and in particular the proposed point-of-sale prohibition were the subject of a legal challenge to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) by Barclays, supported by Lloyds Banking Group and Shop Direct Group Financial Services Ltd.

Whilst upholding the CC's conclusions as to the competition problems in this market, the CAT ruled that it must in particular consider further the role and importance of a potential drawback to the prohibition, namely that it might inconvenience customers. Following the CAT's judgment, the CC carried out a detailed analysis of the likely effects of such a prohibition and concluded that the benefits of a package of remedies including the prohibition, by introducing greater competition and choice and lower prices to the market, would outweigh the disadvantages, in particular the potential inconvenience to some customers.