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Panorama puts banks under fire
After the bailouts, the bonuses and the multi-million pound fines for mis-selling products, Britain's banks say they have cleaned house and are working hard to rebuild reputations and regain customers' trust.
But as Panorama's Penny Haslam reports tonight, it is an uphill battle.
Panorama used two mystery shoppers to go undercover to gain a glimpse of in-house advisers at work. Each had the same cover, both were retired and with £90,000 to invest and both sought out cautious advice.
None of the filmed bank advisers broke Financial Services Authority rules although the BBC said that they came close on a few occasions, overstepping key principles laid down by the industry watchdog about treating customers fairly.
Panorama brought in two independent financial experts Louise Oliver and Adrian Lowcock to review the undercover camera footage to assess the advice on offer.
Lowcock, senior investment adviser from Bestinvest, said: “It has not been very clear. Charges were not very well explained, risk was not very well explained and fact finds were rushed. On some occasions we saw misleading on the charges conversion and confusion on risk conversations and that doesn’t seem fair on clients.”
And financial expert Oliver said: “It's inaccurate, it is misleading and it is building up the credibility of that particular solution for the client; the reason the advisor is probably doing it is because he knows that person is shopping around.”
Lloyds TSB responded: “If our adviser has described our charges as market leading then he has not met our expectations.”
HSBC added: “Although the issues raised by Panorama are the result of the advisory process not running to its natural conclusion, we have taken on board the issues raised and will use them to ensure we continue to offer the best possible service to our customers.”
The show is set to air on BBC One tonight at 20:30. Panorama: Can You Trust Your Bank?
- House prices expected to rise
- Brokers cut out of remortgage business
- Openwork happy with mortgage performance
- Lloyds expected to axe 15,000 more jobs
- Online self-service platform launched
- Barclays settles PPI claims
- FSA grants extension for some PPI complaints
- Northern Rock cuts mortgage rates
- Advised protection sales the way forward
- BBC announces first phase in sale of TV Centre
- BoE: Interest rate hikes unnecessary
- FSA: Annual Report published
- Clydesdale launches deals for brokers
- House price changes predicted by search engines
BritishBankers wrote:
British Bankers' Association here. Might be worth adding some bank comment. We cannot say much about the programme, since we haven't seen it, but we did give an interview which we hope they'll use. Bank staff take a great pride in serving their customers well. Where professionally qualified staff provide specific financial advice to their customers, they do so on the basis of all the information provided to them within a tightly defined regulatory framework: the more comprehensive the information, the more accurate the advice which results. Any recommendations on the combination of products and services are well documented to enable customers to review their options and shop around to get the best deal. It does not naturally follow that there is a single 'correct' answer to an individual's financial circumstances and it may well be the case that different advisers make different recommendations. Banks monitor constantly the quality of advice their staff provide to customers through customer feedback and their own mystery shopping investigations. We hope the programme will share its detailed findings with the banks concerned so they can be included in this process.
13 June 2011 15:20:13 GMT
Recommend? (0)Martin Tapper wrote:
I am an independent AR and consider banks as indirect competition. The article mentions that the advisers did not break FSA rules, so the sound of it they were just not very special. Making a programme about advice from a handful of advisers is hardly representative of an entire industry. I suggest more attention is focused on the producers of the PANORAMA programme which appears to have descended YET AGAIN into rubbish sensationalist journalism. What a ignominious demise for what used to be a BBC flag-ship journalism.
14 June 2011 09:22:16 GMT
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