What are interest rate swaps, caps and collars?
The Financial Services Authorityreviewed four types of products sold to small businessesover the last 10 years that were supposed to help protect them against interest rate movements.
During this period, UK base rates moved in a range between 0.5% (where they are now) and 5.75%. The FSA found that four high street banks – Barclays, RBS, Lloyds and HSBC – missold such products.
Read More Visit Guardian Web Site
Mis-selling could costs jobs
Eightythousand jobs could be lost as a result of a mis-selling scandal involving some of the UK’s biggest banks, according to the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).
Read more visit Yorkshire Post Website
Greg Wright: Battered bankers back in the ring over rate hedging
A few months ago, there was just a chance that the “banker-bashing season” might have passed.The shareholder spring, which saw investors rebel against a host of big corporate names in a wide range of sectors, was helping to shift the spotlight away from financial services.
Then, the Libor scandal erupted and the banking sector is back in the doghouse.
FSA close to helping firms hit by interest swaps
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is in last minute talks with banks to agree a settlement package for small firms which believe they were wrongly sold interest rate swaps.
Interest-rate Swaps: Banks face small business fightback
The banks are in hot water again. Major High Street lenders have been selling complex financial contracts to small business clients without properly explaining the risks involved.
Read more visit BBC News website
Barclays: Cameron says bank faces ‘serious questions’
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Barclays Bank management has “serious questions” to answer over how it manipulated banking lending rates.
Read more visit BBC Business News website
IRSA mis-selling: Britain’s biggest banks face thousands of compensation claims in fresh scandal over mis-selling 28,000 financial products to small businesses
Another scandal rocked the financial sector today as the City watchdog revealed some of Britain’s largest banks will have to refund or pay compensation to potentially thousands of businesses.
Read more visit The Daily Mail website
Watchdog Hunts Bank Over ‘Business Victims’
The City Watchdog has confirmedthat thousands of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) have been victimsof a mis-selling scandal by Britain’s High Street Banks.
Read more visit Sky News website
Banks Face Ban From Selling Interest Rate Swaps
Banks will be banned from selling interest rate swaps to small businesses as part of a settlement package to be announced by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which could see lenders make large compensation payments to firms mis-sold complex derivatives.
Did Banks mis-sell swap loans to businesses?
Up to 20,000 small businesses may have bought complex financial products from banks without properly understanding the risks, research by the BBC shows.
The Financial Services Authority is close to completing an initial probe into whether banks systematically mis-sold these products, known as swaps, and whether they are now at risk of paying hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation.
Read more visit BBC News Web Site
Bank mis-selling victims: from the chippy to the small hotel
High street banks stand accused of exploiting small businesses by selling them costly and complex financial products that made huge profits for banks while crippling once sound firms
Caught in the trap: ‘I trusted the bank and saw it just like a house mortgage’
One entrepreneur’s first taste of running a manufacturing company saw him caught by an interest rate swap sold by Barclays.
Two million pound ‘swap’ puts pub chain out of business
‘They rang us this morning…half an hour later the administrators arrived’ Two men, Mike Lloyd and Rodney Hall, have spent the last twenty years building up their company, Sarumdale Ltd, with12 branches across the South of England.
This morning, two decades of work came to an end when their bank, the bank whose advice they trusted and took, phoned them to tell them they were being put into administration:
‘This product was not right for my business’
Two examples of small business owners who took out interest rate swaps with their banks.
How the derivatives sold by the banks work
At its most basic, banks offered clients what is called an interest rate swap. The bank would offer the right to fix the base rate on a loan at a certain level to ensure a rise in interest rates would not lead to a company’s borrowing costs rising to a level they would be unable to pay.
Need Legal Help?
We have an excellent track record claiming compensation against major banks and lending institutions for mis-sold insurance contracts and products. There is no conflict of interest with us or any bank. As a specialist firm of solicitors we have no fear in taking on large banking institutions, we do not have a overdraft facility or even borrow any money from any bank to run our own business. In fact we threatened to take legal action against our CREDIT card provider because they tried to stop our taking card payments from clients due to the fact we were taking action against banks for mis-sold PPI.
No Win, No Fee, No Worry, Service
We are confident to offer you a legal service that we are prepared, given the right facts, to offer our clients a no win, no fee, service to claim compensation for mis-sold business interest rate swaps. In short, if you lost your case against the bank and we obtain litigation insurance, you will not have to pay for any costs as the litigation insurance pays the banks legal costs. If you win, you are likely to recover all or the vast majority of your legal costs from the bank. In most cases, win or lose you often do not have to pay a penny towards your legal costs.
If court action is not right for you, the Financial Service Authority has provided a free service to make a claim, but you must make a claim yourself. Alternativiely for a fee of 25% plus vat, we would be able to represent you make a claim through the scheme under a no win no fee service. Thus if you fail in your claim under the scheme, you pay us nothing; if you win, you pay us 25% of the financial benefit of the claim plus vat.
Without fear or favour, conflict or prejudice we are fit for purpose to take action on your behalf.
PleaseCONTACT US NOWfor initial free advice on interest rate swap claims.
