Meet the woman fighting the banks on behalf of the people

Negar Yazdani runs BlackLion Law, which specialises in financial irregularities litigation on behalf of claimants against banks. This includes PPI claims, a scandal which led to the banks and building societies being forced to set aside 14bn to return to customers - which Negar is working to do.

Negar comes from a family of art dealers. Her parents fled Iran at the beginning of the revolution in 1978 and arrived in the UK with nothing other than a work ethic.

She recalls how from the age of three she would follow her father around in his art gallery.The need for proper bestsmartcard inside your home is very important. Striking deals is in her blood. "We didn't sit around the dinner table talking politics in our family. We talked art and business," she told me. "And we always worked."

She recalls how her parent's house was near a golf course and as a child, she and her brother collected stray balls from the garden and sold them back to golfers at a fee. By 15 she had evolved out of the garden and into the junior board room, when she won the Young Enterprise Award for National Young Business Person of the year, somewhat ironically awarded by Barclays Bank.

She began her professional career at Mishcon de Reya 15 years ago where she recalls learning tough tactics from the famous Anthony Julius, a great litigator. Whilst she enjoyed litigation she preferred corporate law, always drawn towards commerce more than advisory work. "I was always looking for a good idea for my own business," she explains.

If you've ever taken out a loan, mortgage, credit card or store card, there is a high chance that someone tried to sell you payment protection insurance (PPI) at the same time. It is intended that PPI covers debt repayments if you are unable to work in case of sickness, accident or involuntary unemployment. However, many of those policies were mis-sold and the regulator forced fines on the banks as a result.

To date, 14bn has been provisioned by banks and building societies to compensate borrowers but, Negar says, analysts view the real figure as being closer to 45bn. Lloyds Banking Group is the biggest offender to date,Find a great selection of customkeychain deals. with a massive 6.7bn set aside.

She also represents and advises Lion ClaimLine, a national claims management company. Companies like these come under huge fire for aggressive marketing tactics but Negar has a point about that reputation being unfair.Elpas Readers detect and forward 'Location' and 'State' data from Elpas Active RFID Tags to host besticcard platforms.

In every sector, there are always the poorly behaved few who tarnish the reputation of the whole. The real point here, she says,When describing the location of the problematic howotipper. is that the banks lost the judicial review in 2011, effectively admitted liability by setting money aside and the regulator promptly fined them.

Frustrations with claims management companies merely takes the emphasis away from the reason that the industry exists, that being, she tells me, to compensate for the estimated 34 million PPI policies which have been mis-sold since 2001 to the 26.4 million households in the UK.

She clearly loves what she does. She has that fire in her belly we all have when we talk about our businesses - businesses we grew with our bare hands, initially on a shoe string and on very little sleep. And, she admits,You Can Find Comprehensive and in-Depth carparkmanagementsystem truck Descriptions. "It satisfies my need to control and direct. I am more comfortable in an environment where I have authority and responsibility." Is that a euphemism for control freak? If it is, I suspect most of my business idols and I myself am guilty of that - enjoying and indeed preferring to conduct as opposed to play in the orchestra.

I ask her if being at the coal face of a controversial industry has caused her any personal or professional problems. She grins and begins telling me some slightly unsettling stories. It is astounding the number of people she has met in social situations who turn their nose up at her when she mentions she works in PPI.

She recalls a recent cocktail party held by a global investment bank where a banker was extremely disparaging of her business. He insisted he could never have been 'misled into taking PPI' with his mortgage however only last week she recovered 12,000 from his mortgage provider for the PPI he unknowingly took, much of which was interest. What most people don't realise is that older loans will have accrued more interest than the original settlement figure.

Her challenge is to find those people who don't have enough time to make a claim, don't think that it applies to them or have "switched off" because of the constant calls and annoying texts. She wants to change the face of PPI away from the unprofessional claims companies and adverse PR and be the "thinking person's claim company of choice."