Six high street banks have broken rules imposed by the CMA under the Retail Banking Market Investigation Order 2017. Banks and building societies are required to follow strict rules when it comes to informing customers of their services – from showing correct interest rates for current accounts, using accurate promotional materials online and within branches, to accurately displaying the right locations and opening times.
The breaches include:
- failing to keep information on interest rates up to date for overdrafts on two of its webpages;
- listing incorrect details of branch locations through Open Banking (after some had permanently closed) as well as wrong information about some current account charges;
- failing to publish information about the maximum amount it can charge customers for overdrafts in all the places it should have done. It also showed out of date information relating to interest rates for their business account overdrafts on one of its webpages;
- publishing incorrect service quality rankings relating to personal and business current accounts in leaflets and branch posters which gave potential customers a misleading impression of its performance; and failing to keep information in relation to interest rates up to date for one of its overdrafts on one of its webpages;
- overcharging 92 customers for entering an unarranged overdraft; and
- not updating records following branch and ATM closures. They also listed incorrect interest rates for small business loans when sharing information with independent price comparison tools.
All 6 banks have confirmed they are making changes to their operations to prevent further breaches – ranging from destroying out of date promotional materials, to updating internal checklists and retraining staff.