M&S announce new finance director (with a history of PPI mis-selling)

Marks & Spencer Money, the finance arm of the luxury supoermarket brand, yesterday announced the appointment of a new finance director.

Helen Weir will join the business from the John Lewis Partnership early next year, on a salary of almost £600,000 per year on top of a £188,500 lump sum sweetener.

It’s reasonable to assume then that Mrs Weir’s track record must be highly impressive in order to command such a salary.

Lloyds Banking Group

Prior to joining the John Lewis Partnership, Helen Weir spent eight years working at the Lloyds Banking Group, with four of them being in the role of finance director.

The Lloyds Banking Group consists of many banks under one umbrella, with the likes of Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Blackhorse and of course, Lloyds, being the major players within that.

It’s therefore clear that the position held by Mrs Weir within the group between 2004-2008 was of great importance.

Crash and scandal

Now we are not for one moment suggesting that Mrs Weir was solely at fault for what was happening within the Lloyds Banking Group prior to the financial crash in 2008.

However, there can be no hiding from the fact that her decisions as finance director would have played some role in the near collapse of the Lloyds Banking Group, which led to the UK taxpayer bailing the bank out.

Furthermore, we cannot pin the blame entirely on Mrs Weir, for the mis-selling of PPI.

However, once again she played a part in the Lloyds Banking Group being the biggest culprit of the mis-selling of the often useless policies.

Indeed, Mrs Weir was forced to apologise for her actions during the height of the PPI mis-selling saga, when banks were systematically adding PPI to mortgages, loans, credit card and all sorts of other credit agreements, often without the knowledge of the customer.

Is this the type of person we should be looking to employ within our financial services industry?

Is this track record of putting profit before customer, and risking the future of the banking industry, to be rewarded with a salary over 20 times the average UK salary?

Wrong people, in the wrong jobs

M&S Money have played their role in the mis-selling of PPI, as have the majority of banks and lenders.

Now is the time that such institutions need to be seen to be turning a new leaf, not hiring people on obscene money with a track record of destruction and manipulation.

People’s trust in the banking sector is at an all time low, and the continuing merry-go-round of top executives moving from one bank to another, is hardly going to restore banks ever dwindling reputations.

Millions affected

We’ve all been affected by the actions of banking executives in one way or another following the financial crisis.

However, and perhaps more concerning, there are many millions of us who have still to make a claim when the greed of the banks led to PPI being added to credit agreements.

Unsure whether you’ve had PPI?
Can’t remember your account numbers?
Unsure whether you qualify? Have a look at our checklist here.
Want to know how much you could be owed? Click here for our PPI calculator.

Your Money Claim have been fighting, and winning, cases against banks for years.

We don’t need account numbers or paperwork as our fast-track systems set up with almost all lenders can check whether you’ve had PPI on any of your agreements.

So why not fill in the online form, or contact us via telephone, email or our live chat facility, and let us see whether you’re one of the estimated 7 million people who may still have a PPI claim.

M&S announce new finance director