Panorama report exposes UK banks mis-selling
A report by Panorama that will be broadcast at 8.30pm this evening (June 13th) will criticise the financial advice given to customers by many of the UK’s leading banks.
The investigators for the programme pose as investors who have just retired and are looking to secure a low-risk investment with funds of £90,000. The meetings are secretly filmed and then watched by independent financial experts Adrian Lowcock and Louise Oliver.
The experts discovered that whilst the bank advisers did not break FSA rules, both of the advisers filmed did not present information on the costs and fees involved in an accurate or upfront manner. A Lloyds TSB adviser implied in her answer that the set up fees were amongst the cheapest when in fact they are not.
One investor featured on the programme went to Abbey National - now part of the Santander group - to invest £11,000, making clear that it was vital that the money was safe, only to find the investment had lost over half of its value within six months. Santander rejected her complaint of mis-selling but the FSA overturned that and the bank had to repay the lost money.
Both Barclays and the Bank of Scotland have recently been fined for offering poor advice to potential investors. The FSA fined Barclays £7.7 million and the Bank of Scotland had to pay £17 million compensation to their customers who were mis-sold investment plans.
A spokesman for Lloyds TSB said: “If our adviser has described our charges as market leading then he has not met our expectations.”
Lloyds TSB has recently set aside over £3 billion for compensation claims for customers mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) and Barclays today announced that it will settle all claims received by its customers with “no quibbles.”
Which? chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith, said: "The quickest way for these banks to clear the backlog is by paying up, so we're pleased that Barclays has chosen to settle all complaints that it put on hold while this went to court. It's now up to the other big banks to follow suit and quickly reimburse customers who are entitled to compensation.”
One of the experts featured on the show, Bestinvest investment adviser Adrian Lowcock said: “Charges were not very well explained, risk was not very well explained and fact finds were rushed.”
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