Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks fined a record £21 million for ‘serious’ PPI abuse

Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks have been hit with a record £20.7 million fine for a litany of abuses in handling payment protection insurance claims which went as far as misleading the Financial Ombudsman.

The “serious” failings meant nearly three quarters of Clydesdale’s 126,600 complaints decided between May 2011 and July 2013 may have been rejected unfairly or resulted in inadequate fines, the Financial Conduct Authority said.

The fine is the largest for PPI abuses. Clydesdale, recently put up for sale by National Australia Bank, refused to search for documents relating to PPI on loans beyond the bank’s seven-year retention period, despite some records being readily available.

In the most serious cases, a Clydesdale team altered printouts for the Ombudsman to make it look as if the bank held no relevant documents, and deleted PPI information from printouts listing products sold to the customer.

Management were unaware of the practice.

Georgina Philippou, the FCA’s acting director of enforcement and market oversight, called the bank’s behaviour “unacceptable”.

Acting chief executive Debbie Crosbie said: “We got this wrong and I am sorry for that.”