Banks’ £500,000 compensation bill for just 10 interest rate swaps
BRITAIN’S biggest banks have paid compensation on just 10 cases of interest rate swap mis-selling so far, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) revealed yesterday.
The lenders have taken on 2,800 staff to review more than 30,000 cases, which often involve small firms who wanted protection against interest rate rises.
However sometimes they had no choice whether or not they took out the product with the loan, and they may have been misled as to its price and the protection offered.
A total of 210 redress offer letters have been sent out, and another 1,700 will be sent in the coming months, the regulator said.
RBS has the most claims to process at 10,528, followed by Barclays’ 3,436, HSBC at 3,309 and Lloyds with 2,672.
“With 85 per cent of cases now under review, banks have made progress,” said FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley. “But like the thousands of affected small businesses, we want to see redress paid quickly to those who have suffered loss as the result of mis-selling.”