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Barclays reviews overdraft fees in bid to break from ‘sins of the past’

by: IFAonline
  • 23/09/2013
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Barclays reviews overdraft fees in bid to break from ‘sins of the past’
Barclays is launching an unprecedented review of the overdraft fees and charges faced by nearly 12 million of its current account customers in a bid to make a decisive break from the "sins of the past".

Just days after Barclays admitted it was likely to suffer a £50m fine for the handling of its Qatari bailout, the bank will this week reveal it is pushing ahead with eight commitments to improve service after asking customers what they should do better.

The key part of the campaign will be a complete review of Barclays’ overdraft pricing.

Ashok Vaswani, Barclays’ retail and business banking chief executive, told the Daily Telegraph the bank was already trialling a text alert service where tens of thousands of customers are warned they are about to go into the red.

This has so far cost the bank £1.5m in lost fees and is likely to be extended.

But Barclays is also considering ways it may be able to allow customers with multiple accounts to offset money in one against an overdraft in another to prevent them from being charged.

Vaswani said: “I’m going through the business with a fine toothcomb. We want to de-risk the business and clean up any sins of the past.”

“We really, really have to put customers at the centre of everything we do.”

Barclays’ reputation tumbled through the credit crisis, with last year’s Libor fine followed in the past week by confirmation of the likely penalty it faces for failing to declare it paid £322m to the Qataris for bailing the bank out in 2008.

Barclays also last week admitted that it may have to compensate 300,000 personal loan customers who were given the wrong paperwork for five years.

And it came bottom of an ethical poll by campaigners Move Your Money, scoring just four out of 100 for its honesty and service.

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