Interest rate swaps
The FSA (Financial Services Authority) has looked into the mis-selling of business interest rate swaps and considered that there may be a claim for compensation. The FSA has provided a review of the interest rate swap loans sold to small to medium size businesses (SMEs) by the four largest banks in the UK. The four largest banks are listed below:
Barclays Bank mis-sold business interest rate swap loans
RBS Bank mis-sold business interest rate swap loans
Lloyds mis-sold business interest rate swap loans
HSBC mis-sold business interest rate swap loans
After a review of the mis-selling of business loans or swap loans, the FSA found that when properly sold, in the right circumstances to the right customers, these products can protect customers against the risk of interest rate changes. However, when sold to ‘non-sophisticated’ customers, likely to be smaller business which wouldn’t necessarily have specific expertise and understanding in this area, some products may not have been appropriate for their needs.
In these cases, we found that the banks did not follow our rules in a number of areas, including how a number of products were sold, in particular the sales of structured collars.
Structured collar swap loans in particular were singled out by the FSA as a complicated business loan to protect against fluctuations of interest rates where there was a higher potential of mis-selling a business loan. A structured collar swap loan is defined by the FSA as follows:
A structured collar swap loan
This enables the customer to cap interest rate rises by limiting rate fluctuations to within a range (with a lower ceiling than a simple collar) but involves more complex arrangements if base rate falls below floor limit.
There are other business swap loans that are also applicable and could be suitable for compensation claims.
For further information on these business swap loans please contact us for free intitial advice, further reading visit business interest rate swap loan mis-selling.
Payment Protection Insurance Claims (PPI)
We have an excellent PPI claims success against all the major banks and lenders for mis-selling PPI. Over the last 5 years we have acted for thousands of clients who have been mis-sold PPI.
We have been handling PPI claims both through the banks direct, the Financial Ombudsman Scheme (FOS) and in Court. The latter offers expert advice especially where the FOS has rejcted the PPI claim or where the banks are intending to take possession of our client’s home.
If you have ever bought a car on PCP finance, you may also be aware of PCP Claims, a scandal where motorists were mis-sold on their car finance.
