The Bank of Scotland has been fined £3.5m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). It was also ordered to pay £17m in compensation after the bank wrongly rejected a “significant number” of complaints that it received about sales of a number of its investment products.
Many of the people whose complaints were ignored were vulnerable, older customers who had little or no experience of investing, says the FSA.
Between 30 July 2007 and 31 October 2009 the Bank of Scotland received 2,592 complaints about sales of its collective investment plan, personal investment plan, guaranteed growth bond, Isas and guaranteed investment plan. These complaints were not investigated properly, resulting in many being dismissed.
“We recognise that on this occasion we have fallen short of the high standards of service our customers should be able to expect of us and we apologise to them for this,” says Ray Milne, risk director at the Bank of Scotland. Customers who were affected will be compensated automatically by the end of July.
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• The tax office, HMRC, has announced that it plans to launch a new campaign later this summer to crack down on VAT cheats. The operation will focus on individuals and businesses who are trading above the VAT threshold but who have not yet registered for VAT. Once turnover reaches £73,000, you are obliged to register.