Bank of Scotland has been fined more than £45million for failing to disclose information linked to fraud.
Regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) today issued a penalty fine to the lender over its failures to disclose information about fraud suspicions at its Reading Halifax Bank of Scotland branch in 2007.
The FCA said that BOS was neither open nor cooperative and failed to disclose information appropriately to the then regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
“Bank of Scotland failed to alert the regulator and the police about suspicions of fraud at its Reading branch when those suspicions first became apparent," Mark Steward, executive director of enforcement at the FCA, said.
"BOS’s failures caused delays to the investigations by both the FCA and Thames Valley Police. There is no evidence anyone properly addressed their mind to this matter or its consequences.
"The result risked substantial prejudice to the interests of justice, delaying scrutiny of the fraud by regulators, the start of criminal proceedings as well as the payment of compensation to customers."
In 2017, a group of bankers were sentenced to almost 50 years in jail over a fraud scandal that left hundreds of small business owners "cheated, defeated and penniless” at HBOS's Reading branch.
Today, the FCA said that BOS identified suspicious conduct in early 2007, however failed to alert regulators until 2009.
That delay meant that it took much longer for the criminal misconduct at Reading to be discovered.
The FCA also today banned four individuals from working in financial services over their role in the fraud case. These are Lynden Scourfield, Mark Dobson, Alison Mills and David Mills.
