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November 13, 2014 
Daniel Lee It has today been announced that five banks have been fined a total of £2 billion following an investigation into the manipulation and fixing of the foreign exchange rates (known as forex within the industry).
Of the £2 billion fine, £1.1 billion has been handed out by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), with the remaining £900 million given by the US regulator.
The fine handed out by the FCA is the largest ever, but will it really serve as a deterrent?
The forex market is worth £3 trillion a day! Yes, that’s three million million million, or 3,332**,000,000,000.
That figure doesn’t even fit on my calculator!
To put the fine into context, it equates to 0.067% of the amount traded each day.
Let’s put these figures into every day terms, and base it on an average UK salary of £27,000.
Firstly we need to divide £27,000 by the 365 days of the year to get a daily amount, which is £73.97.
Based on that figure of an average UK persons income, a 0.067% fine would be 5 pence!!!!!!!
Hardly a deterrent or punishment when you consider the astronomical profits that have been generated by the banks involved by manipulating forex.
It will come as no surprise that the likes of Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Citi and Barclays have been caught cheating AGAIN.
With HSBC, RBS and Citi holding their hands up, the fate and fine for Barclays still awaits.
Surely there cannot be many more ways that these toxic, morally devoid banks can manipulate and cheat people, businesses and the global markets in order to line their own filthy pockets?
How can these banks possibly have manipulated the markets?
Surely the markets are set by independent bodies, separate from the banks?
Nope!!!
The banks set the rates every day so manipulation appears to be straight forward.
It’s almost akin to handing a burglar the key to your house.
We cannot be surprised anymore that scandals such as this occur when we simply hand control to the thieves themselves.
For far too long the banks have cheated, from rigging LIBOR and Forex, to the more personal scandals that affect UK consumers directly such as mis-selling PPI and Packaged Bank Accounts.
They cannot be trusted, simple.
An independent worldwide body must be set up to set the rates by which we are affected every day, whether directly or not.
If any bank, or employee of a bank, breaks the rules, real justice and fines must be handed out that serve as a true deterrent.
Until that day comes, if it ever will, we will unfortunately continue to hear about scandals and our ever decreasing trust in our once loved banks will disappear, probably never to return.
Foreign Exchange Rate Fines
November 11, 2014 Daniel Lee First Direct is an online and telephone based retail bank headquartered in Leeds, UK.
It is a division of HSBC Bank plc and has been in operation since 1989. First Direct bank was the first bank in the UK to offer banking services without any branches.
This was an incredibly novel concept at the time but First Direct has steadily grown since its conception, so that is now has 1.16 million customers.
First Direct broke the trend when it came to banking. Unfortunately, they were not any different to their banking competitors when it came to the the mis-selling of PPI.
As people tried and failed to claim on their PPI, the noise of disgruntled banking customers grew louder throughout the early 2000’s.
By 2006 prominent politicians such as Vince Cable MP were questioning “the serious problems and inflated premiums and anti-competitive behaviour in the market for payments protection insurance.”
Indeed, Mr Cable was suspicious that there was “a scandal lurking here”, and sadly, he was right.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was given responsibility for regulating the insurance industry in 2005.
Recently the FSA has changed it’s name to the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).
Since their appointment, HSBC has been fined several times by the FSA for malpractice.
In December 2005, HSBC were fined £100,000 by the FSA for transaction reporting breaches.
In July 2009 they were fined £3 million for security failings.
More recently, the FCA fined HSBC £10.5 million for mis-selling products to elderly customers.
Add to these scandals the fact that HSBC have also been caught rigging LIBOR and the foreign exchange rate, not the mention the £2.5+ BILLION set aside to compensate for PPI mis-selling, and it’s easy to understand why UK consumer trust in the bank has pretty much disappeared.
If you have had a loan, mortgage, or credit card with First Direct within the last 25 years there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your First Direct PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
First Direct PPI claim
November 10, 2014 Daniel Lee Back in 1987 when the National Australia Bank (NAB), bought Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks, they couldn’t possibly have known of the scandals that would follow.
Seen as a sound investment, and a way into the lucrative UK market, the Australians must have believed that purchasing the two banks was a shrewd piece of business.
With two long established, and well respected banks, all seemed well until the financial crisis that kicked in from 2008.
During the crisis it became apparent that UK banks, including Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks, had been using their customers to generate huge profits by offering poor advice, or selling unwanted, and sometimes hidden, policies.
In September 2013 Clydesdale Bank were fined £8.9 MILLION for failing to treat it’s mortgage customers fairly.
It appears that profits came before customers, which unfortunately is often the case these days with banks and lenders.
Clydesdale & Yorkshire Banks have played a huge part in the mis-selling of PPI, which is the biggest financial scandal ever to hit the UK.
With a recent additions to their PPI compensation bill of £500 MILLION, taking their overall bill to £1.2 BILLION, the numbers are simply staggering, when you consider the two banks are not seen as anywhere near the scale of Lloyds, HSBC, Barclays or RBS.
Given the scandals as outlined above, and the almost guarantee that the PPI bill will increase further, it perhaps comes as little surprise that National Australia Bank (NAB) want to wash their hands of Clydesdale & Yorkshire Banks.
The damage to the reputation of NAB, and the spiralling cost of PPI compensation claims appears to have become too much.
A recent statement made it perfectly clear that NAB want to ditch the two UK banks and soon as possible, and we can fully understand why.
If you have had a loan or mortgage with Clydesdale Bank or Yorkshire Bank within the last 25 years there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your Clydesdale or Yorkshire PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
Clydesdale & Yorkshire
November 7, 2014 Daniel Lee HFC stands for Household Finance Corp, a finance company founded in the United States during 1878.
HFC claimed to be the first finance company to offer consumers the chance to repay their loan in instalments rather than a lump sum on the due date.
In the early 1980s, HFC was restructured and renamed Household International Inc. before it was bought by HSBC in 2002 for US$15.3 billion.
As reported by Bloomberg, the acquisition of HFC was a poor investment by HSBC, “It’s an acquisition we wish we hadn’t done with the benefit of hindsight, and there are lessons to be learned,” explained HSBC’s chairman Stephen Green back in 2009.
HSBC’s venture into sub-prime lending through its purchase of HFC was abandoned after a little more than 6 years.
In 2008, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) fined HFC a record (at the time) £1.09 million for mis-selling PPI. As reported in The Telegraph newspaper, HFC failed to gather sufficient information on their customers before recommending PPI to them.
Margaret Cole, FSA director of enforcement explained that HFC’s actions had “put its customers at risk of buying unsuitable protection insurance and the financial impact on them of unsuitable advice was likely to be significant.”
If you have had a loan or credit card with HFC in the past there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your HFC PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
HFC PPI claim
November 7, 2014 Daniel Lee Sainsbury’s was the first of the major British supermarkets to provide financial services.
Sainsbury’s Bank began trading on 19th February 1997 and was launched as a joint venture between Sainsbury’s and the Bank of Scotland, which later became part of the Lloyds Banking Group.
Sainsbury’s Bank has over one million active customers who are provided with a range of financial products including credit cards, savings, insurance and loans.
In mid-2013 Sainsbury’s declared its intention to buy the 50% share owned by Lloyds Banking Group and become a wholly owned subsidiary of J Sainsbury’s plc.
This deal was completed on 31st January 2014.
A 2004 study conducted by the consumer group Which? found that banks were acting dishonestly when selling PPI.
Little consideration was shown to the actual needs and circumstances of the customer.
In the specific case of Sainsbury’s Bank, Which? researchers were told “We strongly recommended that you take the cover”. Such comments constitute mis-selling because undue influence is placed by the bank onto the customer.
The evidence of PPI mis-selling compiled over a number of years by Which? was documented and is now published on the UK Parliament’s website.
Until very recently, Sainsbury’s Bank was half-owned by Lloyds Banking Group, which also owns Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Blackhorse to name a few.
Lloyds Banking Group is by far the biggest offender of any bank in the UK when it comes to mis-selling PPI, with their bill alone standing at an eye watering £11.3 BILLION at the time of writing this.
If you have had a loan or credit card with Sainsburys there’s every chance you’ll have been paying for PPI.
We’ve made claiming easy, taking the stress out of you having to deal with the paperwork, the stress, and the tactics employed by the bank to try and wriggle out of paying.
So….how do you start your claim?
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your Sainsburys PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
Sainsburys PPI claim
June 8, 2015 Daniel Lee It may be long overdue but it appears the dominance and monopoly of the big four banks is to be investigated.
For far too long now, Lloyds Banking Group (including Halifax and Bank of Scotland), RBS / Natwest, Barclays and HSBC have dominated the high streets when it comes to putting your money.
Years ago this didn’t seem to be a problem as we trusted our banks.
With nowhere else to turn, UK consumers have been left with few alternatives other to place our money with these banks and getting very little back in return.
It’s abundantly clear with the main banks that profits come first.
Customer service, and competitive products aren’t on the agenda when it comes to these giants of finance.
The fact of the matter is, there have been no alternatives and these banks are all equally as poor as each other when it comes to dealing with customers and our needs, so it didn’t really matter how we were treated.
We seem to hear about a new scandal or a new fine on a daily basis these days, from rigging LIBOR and foreign exchange rates, to money laundering and Mexican drug cartels.
Whilst the above do impact what we all pay on a daily basis, it is perhaps the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI), and the recent investigations into the potentially millions of mis-sold Packaged Bank Accounts, that really make us sit up and take notice.
Selling worthless insurance policies to us, their own customers, only serves as further proof that banks believe they can get away with treating us how they wish.
However, the UK consumer appears to be fighting back with the number of PPI claims, and the ever increasing number of Packaged Bank Account claims.
This has forced the government to take notice, and to look deeper into the banks and the apparent monopoly they have on the market.
With 77% of current accounts currently being serviced by ‘the big four’, there is a long way to go before there is enough competition in the market.
Only when the grip of these out of control banks is loosened will we see real competition and a proper focus on customer needs and service.
Until then, we’ll continue to see scandals and financial claims.
PPI was sold on all forms of credit, and with an estimated 34 million policies sold worth a colossal £50 BILLION we believe you may be in a minority if you haven’t been sold a policy.
Not sure whether you’ve been sold PPI? Our fast and comprehensive checking systems that have been set up with almost all banks allows you to find out whether you’ve been one of the millions who have had PPI.
Not sure whether you qualify? Check here to see whether you may.
Want to know how much you may be owed? Why not try our PPI calculator.
Have you ever paid a monthly fee for your bank account? With over 10 million active Packaged Bank Accounts, and millions more that have closed, banks are thought to have profited by £BILLIONS through mis-selling them.
#1: The first option for you is to fill in the form which can be seen on every page. By doing so, we will send you out a form in the post for you to complete. Once we’ve received the form back in the freepost envelope we send you with your form, we can make a start on your PPI claim.
#2: The second option for you is to download our form, which again can be found on every page by clicking the ‘download pack’ button. Simply print it out, complete it and send it back to us, our address can be found here. Once we receive is back we’ll let you know and make a start.
Our team of experts are on hand to answer any questions you have via telephone, email or our live chat facility.
So….why wait, let’s get started!
Banks Under Investigation
