Yorkshire Bank hit by largest-ever PPI fine

YORKSHIRE BANK’S parent group has been fined more than £20m – the largest-ever fine relating to the PPI mis-selling saga.

One-in-three of the 126,600 complaints about payment protection insurance (PPI) received over a two-year period “may have been rejected unfairly”, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and up to 50,900 upheld complaints “may have resulted in inadequate redress”.

The FCA has punished the banking group, which also includes Clydesdale Bank, for serious failings in its payment protection insurance (PPI) complaint handling processes between May 2011 and July 2013.

It also provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman Service, although the FCA acknowledged this was without the knowledge of senior management.

Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said the bank has “failed to treat its customers fairly.”

She said: “Clydesdale’s failings were unacceptable and fell well below the standard the FCA expects.  The fact that Clydesdale misled the Financial Ombudsman by providing false information about the information it held is particularly serious and this is reflected in the size of the fine.”

The total fine, £20,678,300, was discounted by 30% because it agreed to settle at an early stage of the investigation.

The FCA said that Clydesdale implemented inappropriate policies in mid-2011 which meant that its PPI complaint handlers were not taking into account all relevant documents when deciding how to deal with complaints.

The following year it provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman Service when a team within its PPI complaint handling operation altered some system print outs to make it look as if Clydesdale held no relevant documents and deleted all PPI information from a separate print out listing the products sold to the customer.