The petition, which was open from 8am-10pm on 25 April only, had already received over 500 signatures by 11am and 1,000 later that afternoon.

A similar petition was issued last year but received only 678 signatures, despite running for two weeks.

Mr Bamford said yesterday’s petition received more signatures within the first four hours than the whole two weeks last year.

Mr Bamford, managing director at Guildford-based Informed Choice, was campaigning for a fairer way of funding the FSCS after the investment intermediary sector received an interim levy of £60m to pay for the failures of firms such as Keydata.

The petition requested better categorisation of firms within the FSCS funding system and greater awareness of the funding methods of the compensation scheme.

Mr Bamford said: “I’m delighted we got so many signatures and that it did so well. We had a target of 1,000 so to have over 1,400 in less than 24 hrs is just overwhelming.

“It demonstrates the strength of feeling about this issue that people were willing to take time out of their day to sign the petition and leave comments.”

Mr Bamford will now send the 26 pages of signatures to Mark Hoban MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority and Mark Neale, chief executive of the FSCS.

He hopes the points raised will be mentioned within the Consultation Paper for funding and for a statement of support from Mr Hoban.