The FSA has introduced a temporary rule to give customers who recently made a complaint about their purchase of a Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) policy more time in which to refer their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (Ombudsman).

The temporary rule, which suspends the existing six month time limit for referring complaints to the Ombudsman, will come into effect from today and run for five months, until 27 October 2010.

The rule applies to recent PPI complainants who have already been sent a final response from a firm between the dates of 28 November 2009 and 28 April 2010 inclusive.

The regulator says the action has been taken to ensure recent PPI complainants are not disadvantaged by running out of time to refer their complaint to the Ombudsman while the FSA works to resolve a long term solution to ensure customers are treated consistently and fairly when complaining about the sale of a PPI policy, or when buying a new one.