LYG Lloyds Banking Group Plc

By Adam Clark

The U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority said Thursday that it has taken action against Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LLOY.LN) for failing to provide customers information about payment-protection insurance.

The CMA said Lloyds didn't send annual reviews about PPI to around 14,000 customers between 2012 and 2018, due to an IT failure. The bank was ordered to send such reminders after a competition investigation in 2011, in order to inform customers how much they paid for PPI and their right to cancel the policy.

Lloyds also provided incorrect information on PPI premiums in annual reviews sent to 2,884 customers, the CMA said.

"Following a series of breaches, we're now requiring legal assurances from Lloyds that they have measures in place to prevent similar breaches from ever happening again," said Adam Land, senior director of remedies, business, and financial analysis at the CMA.

The regulator noted Lloyds previously reported breaches of PPI orders in 2016, also for failing to provide customers with correct data and annual reminders. The CMA reprimanded Barclays PLC (BARC.LN) for similar issues in August.

"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," a spokesperson for Lloyds said.

Lloyds has paid out more than 18 billion pounds ($23.4 billion) over alleged misselling of payment-protection insurance, for policies mostly sold between 1990 and 2010. However, regulators have set an August 2019 deadline for PPI claims.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@dowjones.com; @AdamDowJones

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 04, 2018 06:48 ET (10:48 GMT)

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