Santander has been fined £12.4 million after it let down thousands of customers, many of whom were pensioners, by failing to help them manage their money properly.
Staff at branches gave flawed advice and were not trained properly in dealing with customers' personal circumstances, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The FCA's report also said they did not get to grips with the level of risk their clients were prepared to take, ensure they had clear information and did not make regular ongoing checks on the viability of investments.
Tracey McDermott, the body's director of enforcement and financial crime, said the Spanish-owned high street chain had "let its customers down badly".
She added: "Customers trusted Santander to help them manage their money wisely, but it failed to live up to that responsibility. If trust in financial services is going to be restored then customers need to be confident that those advising them understand, and are driven by, what they need."
About 295,000 customers may have been affected between January 2010 and the end of 2012. Santander sold nearly 350,000 products worth about £7 billion during the three-year period.
Santander has apologised and says it will contact affected customers.
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