CLYDESDALE Bank has denied reports from Australia that it sacked staff involved in the falsifying of customer records.
But it says some staff were "removed from their posts", and some management bonuses were affected.
The doctoring of files submitted to the financial ombudsman was a key factor behind the £20.7million fine levied on the bank this week by the Financial Conduct Authority, three times the biggest previous fine relating to PPI complaints mishandling.
The regulator accepted the bank's claim that neither senior management, nor the "PPI leadership team", were aware of the malpractice.
Australian media reported yesterday that staff had been sacked and managers punished, after Andrew Thorburn, chief executive of National Australia Bank which owns the Clydesdale, said individuals had been "removed". He added: "But it also went further because management were accountable, even if they weren't responsible. Some incentive outcomes were zero."
A Clydesdale source said the episode had impacted on bonuses, which had been zero in 2012 and reduced in 2013. He added: "The group has a clear policy of not paying bonuses for underperformance."
Debbie Crosbie, acting chief executive, said: "While we can't discuss specific individuals, appropriate disciplinary action has been taken and remains an area that we will continue to actively review. We take full accountability for our actions and for putting this right for customers."
It emerged yesterday that the process of reviewing over 100,000 claims, which The Herald predicted last November, will take up to 18 months to complete.
The bank spokesman said: "It means 10,000 cases are being reviewed every month, they are quite complex and in some cases go back beyond 2000, that is a mammoth exercise and we are committed to doing it properly."
Mr Thorburn said the outcome was "disappointing" but would not delay the planned stock market flotation of Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks.
The bank was fined £20.7 million on Tuesday after "serious failings" meant thousands of PPI complaints might have been rejected unfairly.
The FCA found that staff at Clydesdale and sister bank Yorkshire failed to search for documents if they fell outside a seven-year timeframe, even if they were still readily available.
Clydesdale, which is owned by National Australia Bank (NAB), also provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman Service in response to requests for evidence of the records held on PPI policies sold to individual customers.
The FCA said that out of 126,600 PPI complaints decided between May 2011 and July 2013, up to 42,200 might have been rejected unfairly and up to 50,900 upheld complaints might have resulted in inadequate redress for customers.
The banks are now reviewing all PPI complaints handled prior to last August and have offered redress to any customers impacted by the failings.
The fine is the largest imposed by the FCA for failings relating to payment protection insurance.
Georgina Philippou, acting director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: "Clydesdale's failings were unacceptable and fell well below the standard the FCA expects.
"The fact that Clydesdale misled the Financial Ombudsman by providing false information about the information it held is particularly serious and this is reflected in the size of the fine."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article