After a review of the mis-selling of business loans or swap loans, the FSA found that when properly sold, in the right circumstances to the right customers, Interest Swap loans can protect customers against the risk of interest rate changes. However, when sold to ‘non-sophisticated’ customers, likely to be smaller business which wouldn’t necessarily have specific expertise and understanding in this area, some products may not have been appropriate for their needs.
Most of the interest rate swap business loans were sold between 2005 and 2008 but investigations can take place as far back as 2001. Most small to medium size businesses owners were led to believe that these type of swap interest rate loans were just a label to simply fix their small business loan interest rates to provide some future certainty that the cost of the loan will not rise. In reality, the swap interest business loans were a sophisticated banking product that gambled on interest rates rising and falling.
Simply put
- Around 28,000 swap products have been mis-sold by the banks.
- The products have poor disclosure of any exit costs.
- Customers were not made fully aware of the risks they were taking on with the loans.
- The sales staff giving professional advice were not regulated or qualified to do so.
- Loans were “over-hedged”, where the amounts and or duration did not match the underlying loan.
- Rewards and incentives were given to staff for selling the loans.
We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and we possess an excellent track record in recovering compensation in many legal issues from contract disputes to financial mis-selling of insurance products and services. For more information please visit our website www.iamhappi.com or Contact Us for further advice on interest rate swap claims.
If you are a small to medium size business that has been sold a RBS business loan with a swap interest rate product pleasecontact usto see if you have a claim for mis-sold interest rate swap compensation. You could be owed £thousands!
Further Reading
