Halifax PPI Claims – The Story

In 1853, Halifax previously known as Halifax Building Society was founded, named after a small market town in West Yorkshire, becoming known as ‘Halifax plc’ in 1997 when it became a public limited company. Halifax, in it’s various formats, has historically been the largest supplier of residential mortgages and savings accounts in the United Kingdom.

The forming of HBOS

In 2001 Bank of Scotland joined forces with Halifax, after agreeing to a £10.8 billion merger. This union became known as Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

In 2006, HBOS transferred all of Halifax’s assets and liabilities over to Bank of Scotland, and in doing so Halifax became a division of Bank of Scotland.

Lloyds Banking Group

A takeover by Lloyds TSB of HBOS in January of 2009 was approved, and confirmation of the deal was released on 19th January 2009. This saw HBOS becoming part of the Lloyds Banking Group, which it continues to be to this day.

140 years of morals  destroyed

Halifax was founded 161 years ago, but only over the past 20 years, since the mass change overs have the problems emerged.

In the first 140ish years of existence there seemed to be little in the way of scandal surrounding Halifax, and it was generally seen as a trustworthy bank, as most banks were considered at the time. Only in the last 20 years or so has Halifax, and it’s new partners, been caught up in a web of lies, deceit and scandal.

Is it a coincidence that when Halifax ceased to answer to it’s customers, and started to trade for the benefit of it’s shareholders, that scandal after scandal started to come to light?

Is it a coincidence that in chasing profits to line the pockets of a few, that millions of loyal customers have been cheated out of their hard earned money?

PPI shame

Lloyds Banking Group is certainly the biggest culprit in the biggest financial scandal to hit the UK. Setting aside £10.4 BILLION so far to compensate innocent customers for the mis-selling of Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) sees the group footing 40% of the total PPI bill. Their bill continues to soar, adding a further £600 MILLION in July of 2014 and this will not be the last addition they make to the pot.

Halifax appeared to be trading morally and decently for 140 years, but since joining HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group there problems have started and complaints have been increasing at a worrying rate.

Complaint handling issues

As if mis-selling policies in their millions wasn’t bad enough, Lloyds Banking Group along with most other lenders have also been caught rejecting valid PPI complaints. There’s a simple reason for this, with an estimated 9/10 rejected complaints not being referred up to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which in turn has saved the banking sector £17 BILLION in PPI compensation, according to our estimates.

After rejecting a significant number of complaints, they were also fined £4.3 MILLION by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in February of 2013 for delaying pay outs of compensation.

Packaged Bank Accounts

Lloyds Banking Group, like all banks we are currently aware of, have also been caught mis-selling Packaged Bank Accounts (PBA) to their customers.

Should the group be accountable for 40% of the mis-selling of PBA’s, much like they were for PPI, then this could see them having to set aside another significant amount of money to compensate customers of this new scandal, given our calculations that PBA mis-selling is worth £BILLIONS.

A recent fine dished out to Lloyds Banking Group of £28 MILLION from the FCA only compounds our worst fears that the banking sector refuses to change it’s ways and learn from it’s mistakes. It appears to lure of profits outweighs everything else. The fine was issued due to the banks’ continued push to sell products by pressurising staff with incentives and bonus targets, which clearly only ever leads to mis-selling.

It appears that Halifax’s decisions over the last 20 years, in becoming a public limited company, in forming HBOS, and in becoming part of the Lloyds Banking Group have had irreparable damage on the reputation and moral standing of this once trusted institution.

From being the largest provider of residential mortgages and savings accounts, to being part of the organization which is biggest culprit of mis-selling Payment Protection Insurance and Packaged Bank Accounts can only be put down to mis-management on a huge scale.

Halifax PPI claims have risen year on year since the scandal broke in the mid 2000’s. Indeed Halifax PPI claims make up a significant proportion of the 10 BILLION + that Lloyds Banking Group has set aside to compensate customers.

Make your claim

Your Money Claim deal with Halifax PPI claims on a daily basis. Our fast track system allows us to obtain information regarding all of your accounts and whether any of them have PPI, so there’s no requirement for you to have any paper work in order to launch a Halifax PPI claim.

Start your Halifax PPI claims today by simply filling in our on-line claim form or downloading a pack. Our experts are on hand via telephone, email or our live chat to answer your questions.

Halifax PPI Claims