September 26, 2008

FSA fines GE Money £1.1m over systems failures

Mortgage customers had been incorrectly charged

By Leo King

Credit firm GE Money Home Lending has been fined £1.12 million, after regulator the FSA found systems and controls failings at the company had led its customers to lose money.

GE money’s customers had lost a total of £2.3 million before the company compensated them, the FSA said. Some 684 people, who had signed up to a mortgage contract, were affected by the problem.

GE Money’s terms and conditions had not made the interest conditions clear to all customers, the FSA said. Then, owing to “inadequate” systems and procedures at the firm, retention money and interest were not always repaid correctly, and sometimes customers were charged incorrectly.

While failings had been identified by the company in 2004, they persisted for over two years and not all customers were correctly compensated, the FSA stated.

The regulator said the fine “sends a clear signal that lenders' management must ensure they have proper control and monitoring systems in place so that they treat all their customers fairly and prevent them suffering detriment”.

GE Money agreed to settle an early stage of the proceedings and received a 30 percent reduction in its penalty fine.

In April, the FSA fined business process outsourcing firm Liberata Financial Services £525,000 because process failures had led to 30,000 policyholders losing money after not receiving important financial information.

Newsletters

Sign up to our Weekly Round-Up for the past week’s not-to-be-missed news analysis and insight delivered straight to your inbox.