fca investigates lloyds banking group

<p>The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) investigates Lloyds over its Payment Protection Insurance complaints handling procedure, as recent reports have uncovered evidence of potential bad practice in its PPI complaints handling.</p> <p>It has also been alleged that the call centre staff were encouraged to delay and deny any compensation requests, with the hope that customers would drop their claims.</p> <p>The FCA in regards to investigating PPI complaints have said: “this is really shocking news. And that you would have thought that they would have learned their lesson the first time around with the fact they mis-sold but no they then have to go further and mess consumers around again”. They further added “We expect all firms to comply with our rules and treat their customers fairly. Firms know that PPI complaints must be thoroughly investigated and that appropriate action, where required, is taken promptly.”</p> <p>Lloyds has previously been fined £4.3 million early this year by the city watchdog after up to 140,000 customers had their PPI compensation payments delayed. Thus they have announced that they will work with the FCA to resolve the issues and ensure their customers’ complaints are addressed efficiently and fairly.</p> <p>The FCA probe has further announced that they were setting aside £450 million to cover PPI mis-sold selling claims and up to £18.4 billion has been set aside across the financial services industry to tackle this ongoing surge of PPI complaints.</p>