HSBC Could See Bank Charge Refunds Hit £303M
HSBC is predicting the bank will have to issue a further £303,000,000 in refunds to its British customers should they lose the High Court case with the Office of Fair Trading in regards to unfair overdraft charges.
The bank has also revealed that they have already given back some £115,000,000 in 2007 following a spate of refund claims.
Whilst refunding customers the charges they have paid for unauthorised borrowing, in many cases these fees have forced the customers further into the red. This in turn will have had a detrimental effect on their UK credit report, and will in all likeliness affect their ability to apply for credit in the future. Such issues will not be fixed by the refunding of these unfair charges.
HSBC is the first major High Street bank to publish an estimate of the bill it will face if it is declared that customers were initially charged too much for going overdrawn.
Industry experts believe the banking industry has so far seen around £10,000,000,000 in profits from charging current account customers who have gone over their agreed overdrafts.
HSBC and other leading High Street banks HBOS, Barclays and Lloyds TSB are going to the High Court in an attempt to prove they acted accordingly in regards to there unauthorised overdraft customer charges.
