City watchdog blames bonus culture for corrupting bank services says incentive schemes are likely to drive staff to mis-sell, after finding 'serious failings' in study of 22 financial institutions
The City watchdog has ordered banks to put anend to their bonus culture, in a report that blamesstaff incentives for corrupting the services theyprovide and leading to millions of consumers beingmissold investments and insurance policies.
Many if not all of the recent mis-selling scandals over products including paymentprotection insurance (PPI), endowments and pensions had come about because of the waycompanies rewarded sales rather than service, the FSA said.
The watchdog investigated the incentive and bonus schemes at 22 financial firms, anduncovered a range of "serious failings".
It is understood that the worst were at Lloyds Banking Group, which has been referred tothe FSA's enforcement division. This could result in the group, which is 40% owned by thegovernment, facing a fine of billions of pounds. Lloyds has already set aside more than £3.5bnto cover compensation payments.
Martin Wheatley, the FSA's managing director, said banks used to be a place "where youwould go in, stand in a queue and have a pleasant chat with the clerk", but some time agofinancial institutions had changed their view of consumers "from someone to serve to someoneto sell to".
The FSA has ordered firms to drop such sales tactics in favour of schemes that put thecustomer first, and said bank bosses should "take a real interest in fixing this". If firms failed tocomply, the watchdog said, it was prepared to introduce new rules cracking down on bonusschemes that prioritise sales.
"What we found is not pretty," Wheatley said. "Most of the incentive schemes we looked atwere likely to drive people to mis-sell in order to meet targets and receive a bonus, and theserisks were not being properly managed."
He said he had ruled out getting rid of incentive schemes altogether, but banks would beexpected to properly consider whether their incentive schemes increased the risk of mis-selling.
"I want to draw a line in the sand and use the report we are publishing today to set out ourexpectations," he said. "CEO's are ultimately accountable for the way their staff areincentivised, so we expect them to take a real interest in fixing this."
Where a recurring problem was identified, banks would be expected to investigate, takeaction and pay compensation, the FSA said. In the past, incidents of misselling have oftenbeen left to the watchdog and consumer bodies to identify and act upon.
Firms have until the end of October to submit their views on the guidance, and Wheatleysaid he expected them to start to clean up their act immediately.
Lloyds would not confirm whether it had been referred to the FSA's enforcement division,but said in a statement that it had made "significant changes" to its incentive schemes sincethe beginning of the year. It said it had been " working closely with [the FSA], keeping themupdated on our progress and to ensure the changes we have made to the schemes areappropriate."
Richard Lloyd, the Which? executive director, said that the FSA's findings supported hisorganisation's view that most banks had incentive schemes that prioritised sales.
"This must change. It is clear that the light touch regulation of the past has not worked.We want to see the FSA rigorously enforcing the rules and taking tough action against thosebanks that continue to let their customers down," he said.
Figures released by the banks last week showed that customer complaints soared in thefirst half of this year, due to increasing numbers of cases relating to the mis-selling of PPI.Lloyds received around 860,000 complaints in the first six months, a 145% increase on a yearago. Complaints to NatWest doubled year-on-year, while those to Barclays rose by 80%.
Incentive schemes
The FSA found that firms were using a wide range of sales incentive schemes toencourage their staff to part consumers from their cash. These included:
• A "first past the post" system whereby the first 21 sales staff to reach a target could earna "super bonus" of £10,000.
• Basic salaries for sales staff could move up or down by more than £10,000 a yeardepending on how much they sold.
• Sales staff could earn a bonus of 100% of their basic salary for the sale of loans and PPI– if they sold PPI to at least half of their customers.
• Advisers were paid commission on products sold over the course of the year. If theyreached a series of targets, they could lock in an enhanced commission of up to 35% for thewhole of the next year.
• One firm excessively incentivised sales of one product type over another, where thatproduct was more profitable. Staff could therefore earn bigger bonuses by selling oneparticular product, even if it was wrong for the customer.
