By Ian Walker
LONDON--The U.K. financial regulator has fined Royal Bank of
Scotland Group PLC GBP14.47 million ($24 million) for "serious
failings" related to the mortgage advice it gave customers.
The Financial Conduct Authority said Wednesday that the bank,
and its Natwest division, failed to consider a customer's budget
when making a mortgage recommendation, failed to advise customers
who were looking to consolidate debt properly and didn't advise
customers what mortgage term was appropriate for them.
However, the regulators said there was no current evidence this
has caused widespread detriment to customers.
Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at
the FCA said: "We made our concerns clear to the firms in November
2011 but it was almost a year later before the firms started to
take proper steps to put things right. Where we raise concerns with
firms we expect them to take effective action to resolve them
without delay. This simply failed to happen in this case."
RBS and Natwest agreed to settle at an early stage and qualified
for a 30% stage one discount. Were it not for this discount the
fine would have been GBP20.68 million, the FCA said.
Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com
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