Financial claims company to open call centre in Dublin

Stanton Fisher, a UK-based financial claims management company, will open a Dublin call centre in September to cope with a flood of inquiries from consumers who allege they were mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) by banks and credit card companies.

The company says it is currently dealing with about 4,000 cases of alleged mis-selling here. Many customers allege they were sold PPI policies that are useless because they are barred from making claims if, for example, they are self-employed.

Steve Davies, Stanton Fisher’s managing director, said it was receiving new claims at about 1,000 each month.

“To better serve our Irish clients we felt it was essential to open a call centre here. The level of interest is growing rapidly,” said Mr Davies.

Stanton Fisher already has six staff in Dublin, but this will grow to about 20 in coming months as the call centre comes onstream.

It plans to launch an advertising campaign on Irish television in September, using TV3 and also possibly RTÉ.

Its clients have about 400 cases listed in Irish courts, and it has already settled about 100. Stanton Fisher says it processes PPI claims of about £1 million per month for customers of banks in Britain.

Irish banks have been ordered by the regulator to review PPI sales for the last six years, and to refund customers where mis-selling is discovered. Claims companies such as Stanton Fisher, which queried whether customers could rely on a review overseen by banks, take about 30 per cent of any PPI refund as a fee.