FCA fines HSBC £6.2 million over treatment of customers in financial difficulty

The FCA has recently imposed a hefty fine of £6,280,100 on HSBC UK Bank plc, HSBC Bank plc, and Marks and Spencer Financial Services plc (HSBC). The reason? Failures in their treatment of customers who were in arrears or experiencing financial difficulty and vulnerable customers. On top of this, HSBC’s remediation programme cost them £94m to identify the customers impacted and implement operational improvements – with redress payments totalling £185 million to over 1.5 million customers.  

There are so many important themes for lenders in here regarding the treatment of customers in arrears and a lot of reflections with regards to the Consumer Duty. How confident are you that your controls can stand up to the regulator’s expectations? Here we have provided a gap analysis on the key failings identified by the FCA and the questions that firms need to be challenging themselves on.

Our gap analysis is the perfect way for you and your senior management to reflect and challenge yourselves on the appropriateness of your controls against the regulators expectations.

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