The customers have had their reclaim cases frozen by the FSA, pending the resolution of an OFT investigation and a High Court test case.
New figures have been released by the City watchdog, showing that almost a million people have had their bank charge reclaims frozen.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) data show that a total of 972,565 unresolved claims have been made with banks. The FSA imposed a freeze on the cases two years ago, which will only be ended when investigations into the charges from the Office for Fair Trading (OFT) and a High Court test case are concluded.
By the time of the freeze in 2007, a consumer revolt over the £30 charges, which were levied for offences including exceeding overdraft limits, had seen hundreds of thousands of customers successfully reclaim their fees from their banks. A total of £560 million was thought to have been returned by the firms, prior to the FSA action.
The status of the remaining cases, which include all reclaims that had not been resolved at the time of the freeze and all that have been made since, will be resolved by an OFT investigation and the High Court. The OFT is to decide on the fairness of the charges themselves by the end of the year, while the test case is aimed at resolving legal issues connected to the investigation.
Commenting on the FSA's revelation, Chris Warner, lawyer at consumer group Which?, said: "You could fill Wembley stadium ten times over with the people waiting on bank charges claims. It's a huge issue and has to be settled as quickly as possible."
He added: "The important question is how many of these people are in financial difficulty?"
