MSE News

Over 700,000 RBS customers owed compensation after being overcharged on currency exchanges

Naomi Schraer | News Reporter

18 December 2019

About 730,000 RBS customers are owed compensation worth £40 million after being overcharged on foreign money transfers between 2010 and 2014.

Members of the bank's foreign exchange team had manipulated rates on over 10 million foreign exchange payments, meaning customers were charged an extra 60p for every £1,000 sent abroad through bank transfers.

And now affected customers will now be refunded the money they were overcharged, plus 8% compensatory interest.

Around 573,000 of those owed refunds are personal account customers, while the rest have business accounts with the bank.

The employees responsible for manipulating the rates left RBS before their actions were discovered in 2014, with the bank only now paying compensation.

I'm an RBS customer – what should I do?

RBS says affected customers will be refunded by bank transfer if they still have an RBS account, or will be sent a cheque if they've now closed their account. Refunds will be paid into the second half of 2020.

The bank says refunds will be automatic, so you shouldn't need to do anything if you're owed compensation.

But if you think you might be affected and haven't heard from RBS, you can contact it directly on 03457 242424 or by tweeting @RBS_Help.

What does RBS say?

An RBS spokesperson said: "We identified and addressed the source of the incorrect exchange rates in 2014, and put in place additional checks and controls to prevent this happening again. We apologise to those customers impacted."

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