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October 13, 2015 
Daniel Lee RBS, HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds could be forced to break up after a finance watchdog’s inquiry. The watchdog has made claims that Britain’s banking sector is characterised by anti-competitiveness and a failure to meet ordinary citizens and small business’ needs.
The newly established Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has out done their predecessors who were willing to launch an enquiry of this nature until 2015.
The ‘big four’ banks in Britain; Lloyds Banking Group (which includes the likes of Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Blackhorse to name a few), Royal Bank of Scotland (along with Natwest), HSBC and Barclays are the ones that dominate the UK’s yearly £10bn, banking sector. All four of the banks have been shrouded in scandals such as the mis-selling of PPI, and various other dramas in the past few years yet between them, they control 77% of the UK citizen’s current accounts, 85% of UK small business’ current accounts, and a rather overwhelming 90% of UK business loans.
Two different CMA studies which were published on Friday 18th July, concluded that core elements of the UK’s retail banking sector have a significant lack of “effective competition” and ultimately, they fail to meet the needs of personal consumers or small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
This research from the CMA has revealed that while public satisfaction with these dominant banks falls shy of 60% and their market shares have remained fairly resolute. The studies concluded have concluded that smaller banks with higher satisfaction ratings were simply unable to compete or acquire a sizeable share of the market.
Speaking about their studies, Alex Chisholm, the CMA’s chief executive has said: “Competitive personal and SME banking markets are essential to households and businesses throughout the country, and to the success of the UK economy. However, our studies have found that despite some positive developments, significant competition concerns remain which mean that customers may not be getting consistently good service and value from their banks,”
The plans for the CMA to launch the enquiry have come about at a time when the UK’s banking sector is coming under increased scrutiny from within the political ranks in Britain. Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party has vowed to back a competition investigation if he is elected in next May’s general election and shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls has also come out and emphasized the need for widespread reform.
Speaking on the need for reform, Ed Balls said: “As we said earlier this year, in the next parliament we need to see at least two new challenger banks and a market-share test to ensure the market stays competitive for the long term.”
According to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) there are currently a number of substantial changes underway in Britain’s banking sector at the minute. The association has recently published a range of proposals it claims would encourage and facilitate the growth of new and emerging UK banks. The BBA had hoped that the regulators and politicians would have been amenable to their suggestions but the CMA has elected to carry on with and pursue a full-scale inquiry.
Theoretically, such an inquiry could result in a full-scale break up of Britain’s largest banks but reform to this extent is rare. Following on from the enquiry, the CMA will more than likely demand banks cultivate new networks of branches and become much more transparent with respect to their charges.
Move Your Money (MYM) an ethical banking group have welcome the CMA’s planned investigation. Charlotte Webster, campaign manager for MYM had this to say: “We’ve been saying this for years. People want real alternatives. This is something the big banks would have you believe don’t exist, but they do.”
Millions of people in the UK changed banks last year, but a concrete shift from a monopolised banking sector to one that is characterised by diversity and ethics is something that is yet to be realised.
The CMA’s investigation is the 10th analysis of the market since Don Cruickshank was commissioned to examine the industry, by then Prime Minister, Tony Blair in 1999. Former investment banking correspondent at the Financial Times, Chris Hughes has suggested that the UK banks “have much to fear” from the probe that is looming large, however the independence, comprehensiveness and efficacy of this planned enquiry remains to be seen.
Your Money Claim
October 7, 2014 Daniel Lee New York’s Attorney General has accused British bank Barclays of mis-leading its customers and giving an unfair edge to high-speed traders.
According to data, it was shown on Monday the volume in Barclays’ “dark pool” electronic trading venue has plummeted by 79% in the week and a half immediately after New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against the bank.
The number of shares traded in Barclays LX which is an alternative trading system dropped 66% in the week of June 30th, this is according to the data released by FINRA, Wall Street’s self-funded regulator. This also followed a decline of 37% in the week that the probe was announced.
Equities
A number of clients had stopped trading equities with Barclays in the wake of the damaging allegations, or they changed how they trade, like by not allowing orders to be directed to its dark pool, or increasing the minimum order size to avoid high-speed traders who typically trade in small chunks, according to industry sources, who also claim that this had occurred in Asia, Europe and the United States.
The week of June 30th, Barclays’ dark pool was the 12th largest in the United States; down from what was the second largest just two weeks prior. The lawsuit that was filed on June 25th by Schneiderman had said that Barclays had lied to their clients and gave their high-frequency traders an unfair advantage by using advanced computer systems and algorithms to trade securities in milliseconds.
Dark Pools
Dark pools allow for a large number of shares to be traded anonymously so that the market is not informed until completion in order to minimise the risk of the price moving to the disadvantage of an investor, should the market get wind of the trade before it is executed.
Barclays promised investors that they would be protected from “predatory” traders but Schneiderman said he had evidence that the bank falsified their marketing material and misled their big institutional clients in an effort to grow its dark pool to increase revenues and bonuses.
Worries
The retreat of the clients will be a worry for Barclays as it contrasts with when it was the first bank to be fined for alleged rigging of Libor benchmark interest rates when a small number of clients stopped trading, according to sources.
Barclays has released a statement that they are conducting an internal investigation into the allegations and has hired external lawyers to help. They have said that they are still working on their response which is due by July 25th, but that is a deadline that could be extended.
Do you think you’re guilty of another big banking scandal? If you’ve had a loan, credit or store card then you could be owed money from mis-sold PPI and can start your claim today.
Barclays Dark Pool Trading
October 7, 2014 Daniel Lee It’s envisaged that the banks and lenders caught up in the biggest financial scandal in UK history will have to set aside a further £1.5 BILLION over the next week or two. The biggest banks, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, Santander and RBS/Natwest are each expected to each set aside more money to cover payouts of compensation to innocent customers who have been conned out of potentially tens of thousands of pounds.
Whilst figures are yet to be officially released, it’s expected that Barclays will make up the biggest increase, with between £500m – £1bn being added to their compensation pot. Lloyds Bankings Group, which includes Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Blackhorse to name a few, is expected to take it’s PPI bill close to the £11 BILLION mark.
You may recall some time ago Lloyds released their latest set of figures at the time, and did not set aside more money to compensate customers caught up in the huge scandal. Many analysts and so-called experts claimed at the time that this was a sign that the scandal was slowly drawing to a close. I did a blog at the time, disagreeing with this and making the point that Lloyds were in the process of trying to sell off a large chunk of their share in TSB, and that any bad news could affect share prices. It looks like I was correct in my thoughts, as now that 25% of TSB has been sold, Lloyds will soon announce that they are to put hundreds of millions of pounds more aside AGAIN, to compensate claimants.
With 34 MILLION policies sold since 2001, worth an estimated £50 BILLION, the final PPI bill should be way above the banks estimate of £25 BILLION. This will all depend though on a few matters. Firstly, most people who haven’t yet claimed are thought to not be aware they’ve been sold a PPI policy. This is because banks and lenders have been caught placing, or hiding, PPI on credit agreements without the knowledge or acceptance of their customers. Secondly, banks and lenders have also been caught rejecting millions of valid complaints in the hope that customers will simply accept the rejection and walk away. Unfortunately we estimate this may have saved banks almost £17 BILLION. If you have received a rejection regarding a PPI complaint, do not take no for an answer. You have 6 months from the date of the rejection letter to escalate the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service who, in the majority of cases, overturn the rejection and order the bank to make an offer of compensation.
It may sound from the above that banks cannot be trusted, and you’d be right. They have cheated in the first instance and continue to cheat to try and avoid paying out compensation that is rightfully due. Your Money Claim is used to beating the banks. It’s primary objective is to recover the maximum amount of compensation with the minimum effort from it’s customers throughout the process. Your Money Claim can find your accounts, check if there’s PPI, deal with the lender, deal with the Financial Ombudsman Service, and best of all, if you’ve been mis-sold PPI we will strive to get the compensation that you deserve. So why wait, start your claim today.
PPI bill
September 4, 2014 Daniel Lee In part two of this series of the most commonly asked questions about PPI we’re going to look at when the mis-selling started, why it was mis-sold on such a colossal scale and whether or not there’s a deadline for you to have made your claim by.
A number of years ago, advisers who were actually just sales staff were given huge incentives to sell PPI wherever they could, due to the huge profits generated for the banks by PPI.
A number of these staff members were under great pressure to hit targets and to sell this product wherever they could that they strayed far from the truth when it came to selling it.
Those who were selling PPI were more often than not, trusted and established financial institutions which led to people taking things out that they didn’t in fact need which then left millions of people with mis-sold PPI.
Going as far as giving a specific start date, there isn’t really one as the issues with mis-selling have been around for a long time. People were being warned about it as far back as the year 2000, some people even before that as it’s not uncommon for claims to have started back in the 1990s and here at Your Money Claim, we’ve even had successful claims that have dated back to the 80s.
The financial regulator started fining PPI companies back in 2006, almost 10 years ago but nothing really changed or improved for the people who had been mis-sold until 2011.
No, there isn’t a time limit or a deadline on PPI or any other product that you may have been mis-sold. However, banks may try to argue that if the insurance has not been active within the last 6 years, or it’s been over 3 years since you would have realistically known you have reason to complain, the claim should bee disregarded due to the statute of limitations. Most of the time we are able to argue against this but we highly recommend you start a claim as soon as possible to avoid this. So, to clarify…
That about wraps this post up and brings part two to an end. Keep your eyes peeled for part three coming soon! If you missed part one, then click the link at the bottom and catch up.
PPI – The Most Frequently Asked Questions Part 2
September 4, 2014 Daniel Lee Millions of people in the UK are still to claim the money that they’re owed from mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).
Thousands of those probably aren’t aware that they’re actually owed any money at all but if you have had a loan, car finance, store card, credit card or a mortgage then you could be entitled to a pay-out.
Yes, there’s been hundreds and hundreds of different adverts on TV and radio in the past 6 or 7 years from different companies saying that you could be entitled to a PPI pay out but that doesn’t explain to people what PPI actually is.
We’re going to go through some of the most commonly asked questions that we get at Your Money Claim and what we think will be some of the most common, unanswered questions about PPI and we’re going to start with this one…
Well, as was mentioned earlier, PPI stands for ‘Payment Protection Insurance’ and its purpose is to cover your repayments on any of the things mentioned earlier in the post in the event that you lose your job, become sick or have an accident and aren’t able to make the repayments.
It has been systemically mis-sold and even if you think you’ve had it, you’ve nothing to lose by checking as most claims management companies (CMCs) operate on a no-win, no-fee basis and it may turn out that you’re actually owed thousands.
Payment Protection Insurance isn’t necessarily bad product. However, in most instances it was hugely overpriced, generating gigantic profits for those who sold it, which of course led to the temptation to mis-sell the product.
With the profits on offer to banks and lenders it comes as no surprise that bank staff and sales staff were generally heavily incentivised to sell PPI. Therein lies the issue really, as various tactics were adopted including telling customers they couldn’t have the loan / credit without the insurance, telling customers it would ‘help’ the application, and even sneaking it onto the credit agreement without the customer’s knowledge.
After reading this far you might not be too sure if you’ve ever had Payment Protection Insurance and could be asking yourself that simple question of whether you had PPI. We estimate that half of all people who can claim are not aware that they actually have had, or currently still have PPI.
We’d even go as far as to suggest if you’ve had a mortgage, loan, hire purchase agreement, credit card or store card you may well be in a minority if you didn’t have PPI.
We’ve even heard of Barclays putting PPI on bank overdrafts!
Luckily our experience and expertise within the industry has seen most banks and lenders approach us in order to set up ‘fast-track’ systems that allow us to check whether PPI has been added to accounts, so if you’re unsure and want to check, simply contact us and get the ball rolling.
PPI – The Most Frequently Asked Questions Part 1
July 25, 2014 Daniel Lee Money that has been raised by fining the banking industry, almost £20 million, will be put toward funding specialist accommodation for military veterans.
David Cameron has confirmed that the money will go towards paying for eight projects across the UK. New homes or apartments will be created in Edinburgh, South London and Wales.
The money that is being put toward this has been raised from the fines that banks have had to pay after being involved in the Libor scandal; this was after they were found to have been altering inter-bank lending rates.
Speaking about the new scheme, Prime Minister David Cameron said: “One of the greatest worries for our troops when they are wounded or injured is how they and their families will continue with daily life.”
“We should do all we can to take away those worries by providing them with the specialist help and support they need to continue to live their lives and these projects will help to deliver that.”
David Cameron is also expected to open up a new, permanent World War One gallery at the Imperial War Museum as part of the commemorations of the centenary of the conflict.
Also, emergency service charities, search and rescue lifeboat services, scouts, guides, cadets and St John Ambulance are also set to be given a share of the fines.
To read more about how the fines that the banks have been hit with are being put to god use, check this story out about how D-Day veterans are going to benefit.
Banking Fines
