Illegal Bank Charges: £200million Paid Out So Far

THE deluge of irate customers reclaiming unfair bank charges shows no sign of drying up, and already this year, the guilty banks have been forced to cough up around £200million for their sizeable sins.

That’s according to a new report by Credit Suisse, who claim that the banks have been hit hard by the consumer campaign against the dodgy charges, with the payouts costing around one per cent of the major groups’ profits.

The major banks have even been forced to take on extra staff to deal with the mountain of claims and both Barlcays and HBOS have admitted that the repayments have been eating into their profits.

However, HBOS, the group which includes the Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said it intends to separate its costs incurred by the payouts from its earnings.

Jonathan Pierce of Credit Suisse doesn’t buy the HBOS claims. Says he: “’HBOS said the number wasn’t material but that’s subjective and anything above £50m would, in our view, be material in the context of the retail bank and pose a serious threat to management credibility.”

So there you have it - keep those claims coming.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, July 2007 | In: Money Comments (4) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink