Waiting on relief from bank mis-selling

UK regulators in January ordered banks to review the sale of the policies, known as interest rate swaps. The banks are required to compensate customers who were misled or not given relevant information as part of the sales process.

Dentists are amongst the 100,000 SME’s around the UK which have been affected by the issue.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has given some banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds the authority to begin contacting customers to initiate the compensation process.  But other lenders are still engaged in internal reviews to discover the extent of any mis-selling.

Daniel Fallows, a director from Seneca Banking Consultants, who are advising dentists affected, said: “There’s been a trickle of progress in terms of dealing with redress but what’s required is a tidal change. Those businesses which were persuaded – and often required - to take out interest rate swaps by their banks found these products to be damaging and expensive to exit. There are also fundamental question marks about the review process set down by the regulators.  The banks appear to have a system of self-adjudication, with no appeal process currently available to the businesses who do not receive a satisfactory response.”