One of Britain's biggest banks is embroiled in a mis-selling scandal over "buy now, pay later" loans.
An internal investigation into Barclays Partner Finance (BPF), the consumer lending arm of Barclays Bank, reportedly identified a lack of supervision over retailers offering credit for purchases including cars, furniture and home improvements.
This potentially meant consumers were saddled with debt they could not afford to repay or that vulnerable people were subjected to pressure tactics by salesmen.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) asked the banking giant to overhaul its lending practices when it learnt of the shortcomings, which were set out in a report from 2016.
A spokesman said it expected firms to offer "redress when appropriate" and it would "take appropriate action" if this did not happen.
The investigators' findings included an alleged failure to effectively scrutinise some credit agreements - which allow customers to pay for an item over a prolonged period - paving the way for loans to be sold in a misleading or highly pressured way.
Five firms selling BPF loans reportedly had more than one in 10 customers in arrears for their monthly repayments.
Another retailer had more than half of its customers falling behind on their debts, according to the report.
Cases flagged to investigators included one customer with learning difficulties who was pressured into taking out a loan and another who was sold "free credit" that actually carried 28.9% interest, it was reported.
A Barclays spokeswoman said: "Since commissioning this report in 2016, we have maintained an open and cooperative dialogue with the FCA, and have taken significant steps to review and improve our systems, processes and training to ensure that we meet our regulatory obligations and policy commitments.
"Where any customer detriment is discovered, we will act swiftly to identify and fix the root cause, and learn how we can prevent it from happening again."
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 here