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British watchdog issues record fine to Lloyds over PPI complaints

Xinhua, June 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lloyds Banking Group was fined a record 117 million pounds (179 million U.S. dollars) by British financial watchdog over the way it handled complaints about Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) on Friday.

Watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it issued its largest ever retail fine to Lloyds Bank Plc, Bank of Scotland Plc and Black Horse Ltd for failing to treat their customers fairly when handling PPI complaints between March 2012 and May 2013.

Lloyds Bank Plc, Bank of Scotland Plc and Black Horse Ltd are all parts of Lloyds Banking Group.

During the relevant period Lloyds assessed customer complaints relating to more than 2.3 million PPI policies and rejected 37 percent of those complaints, said the FCA.

"A significant number of customer complaints were unfairly rejected," the FCA added.

Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA said: "Customers who had already been treated unfairly once by being mis-sold PPI were treated unfairly a second time and denied the redress they were owed. Lloyds' conduct was unacceptable."

The banking group apologises Friday for the impact on those customers affected and accepts that part of its complaint handling process led to a failure to provide fair outcomes for a significant number of customers.

"We made mistakes in our handling of some PPI complaints. I am very sorry for this," said Antonio Horta-Osorio, Group Chief Executive of Lloyds Banking Group.

Early this week, the British government announced it would launch a share sale which would be open to retail investors in the next 12 months. Endit