News

The current Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) Rules only allow businesses classed as “micro-enterprises” to participate in the FOS complaint redress scheme. At the end of January 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) opened a consultation on proposals that would extend access to the FOS to a much larger group of businesses. The FCA consultation identifies that “small businesses often have more in common with individual consumers”, and “small businesses that buy or use financial products […]

Many thousands of businesses have been struggling over recent years to deal with the implications of long term fixed rate loans: ongoing interest costs significantly above current base rate, and unexpectedly high break cost charges for repaying loans early or refinancing. Businesses often feel that they were not fairly informed about the implication of long term fixes when entering into the loan and would either have not fixed their rate, would have chosen a different […]

In advance of full publication of the report by Promontory, commissioned by the FCA into the treatment of customers within RBS’s Global Restructuring Division, RBS have today announced that they are commencing a new complaints procedure and fee refund, for SME customers. Full details are available on RBS’s website (http://www.rbs.com/news/2016/november/GRG.html)            and affected businesses should review this link. In summary, there are two elements to the process, the first being an automatic refund of certain categories […]

Businesses are still awaiting the publication of the independent report, commissioned by the FCA, into the treatment by RBS of customers in financial difficulties. The report is being carried out by Promontory Financial Group and Mazers and will look at alleged “poor practices” by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG). Claire Collinson Legal has advised numerous RBS business customers since 2010 on these issues. Complaints we have encountered include forced sale of assets, excessive charging […]