Lloyds Banking Group has been ordered by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to improve its communications with customers pertaining to payment protection insurance (PPI) policies.
According to news from The Financial Times, citing the U.K. regulator, Lloyds was told to improve its communications because it has failed to respond to mistakes in an adequate manner. The Competition and Markets Authority said it was providing legal directions to Lloyds because of repeated breaches on the Payment Protection Insurance market investigation order. The order, noted the Financial Times, was put on the books after the Competition Commission launched a probe back in 2011. It mandates companies to provide customers with annual reminders that they have a policy — and the costs associated with it. They are also supposed to be informed that they can cancel or switch providers.
In the two most recent breaches, Lloyds didn’t send the annual PPI reminder to greater than 14,000 customers from 2012 and 2018. It was also charged with supplying faulty information on premiums in notices that are sent to close to 2,900 other customers. The CMA also told the lender to conduct monthly checks to ensure reminders are being sent, alert the Competition and Markets Authority of any future breaches within 14 days of finding them and submit more information on who is meeting the order.
“We are disappointed that Lloyds has again failed to provide these important reminders or provide accurate data to its customers,” said Adam Land, the CMA’s senior director of remedies, business and financial analysis said in the report. “These are serious breaches, and, as we did with Barclays in August, we are issuing Lloyds with legal directions which can be enforced by a court to ensure they comply.”
A Lloyds spokesperson told the paper: “We are writing to a small number of credit card customers whom we identified as having not received their annual PPI statements. Whilst we have resolved the cause of the issue, we are extremely sorry for any inconvenience caused. We will be contacting all affected customers.”
As previously stated, the CMA made a similar move against Barclays in August for not sending out PPI reminders to 2,265 clients.
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