Many thousands of business owners have been impacted severely by fraudulent mis-selling of IRHPs by the banks.

We believe that problem to be a major public interest issue.

If you or anybody you know is a victim of IRHP mis-selling by a bank, it is very important that you don’t miss this meeting because we will be explaining the significance of the December 14th deadline and we’ll be sharing a letter template that can be used to help with making an effective complaint.

Here’s some further background and context:

It has been brought to our attention that a recent Financial Conduct Authority board minute (link here – see paragraph 7.6) records how the FCA proposes to deal with complaints about the redress scheme in relation to fraudulent IRHP mis-selling by the banks. 

It seems that The FCA has decided that: 

(i) it will not proactively reopen old complaints

(ii) new complains will be dealt with consistently with the Swift Report (and revisited in light of the judicial review claim that is underway through the APPG on Fair Business Banking)

(iii) it will not expect to pay compensation, but will consider each complaint on the merits and 

(iv) it is treating the 12 month period for complaints as running from 14th December 2021 to 14th December 2022. 

Our understanding is that if a complaint is not made by the 14th December deadline, the FCA may judge it to be out of time, regardless of the outcome of the Judicial Review.

We therefore believe that it would be prudent for all victims of fraudulent Interest Rate Hedging Product mis-selling by the banks, who have not yet made qualifying complaints, to do so before 14th December 2022. 

That’s because if they don’t, they might lose out on compensation that any ‘natural justice’ test would suggest they ought to be paid. 

It would be wishful thinking to expect all of the thousands of victims that have a basis to make a complaint, to know about the Swift Review; and even greater wishful thinking to expect that all those that have a basis to make a complaint to know about the 14th December deadline.

As such, there is a very real risk that some individuals (many of whom may have suffered extensively and tragically as a consequence of the fraudulent selling of IRHPs by the banks) will lose their chance for compensation.  

That would be very unfair, wouldn’t it?

We would like to think that the relevant banks may already have plans to do the right thing and make their victims aware of the deadline. However, given the financial incentive for them not to do so and their well-documented recidivist behaviour (see this Violation Tracker UK data), we think it unlikely they will do the right thing unless made to do so.

We know that many stakeholders (including some Parliamentarians) have concerns about the effectiveness of the FCA in relation to its consumer protection remit, so we were worried that the FCA might not do what it easily could to make the IRHP victims know about the December 14th deadline.

Unfortunately, we can now confirm that because of correspondence we have had with the FCA’s Financial Services Consumer Panel, there is good reason to believe that the FCA will not be taking any proactive steps whatsoever to help ensure the victims know about the deadline they have set. 

TTF is doing all we can to try to raise awareness of the deadline, in the well-founded belief that even if we can just help one victim to not miss the chance to get the compensation they deserve, it would be worth it. We know it’s important to try to do this, because we fully understand the human cost and suffering caused by financial crime. 

Please therefore do your best to not only attend the event but please also help raise awareness of it through social media.