Recent Bloomberg report reveals Barclays bans broker freebies

Recent Bloomberg report reveals Barclays bans broker freebies
Financial District, New York City, NY, USA
Anthony Carranza
10/6/2014
Updated:
4/23/2016

The London-based multinational bank and financial services company is undergoing strict policy changes. The measure effective immediately is seeing as way to tighten internal controls and crack down on imposing limits on gifts. The report was confirmed on Oct. 2, 2014 by Bloomberg News including the financial institution Barclays.

The policy and ban applies to relations with executing brokers who process the orders for the bank. What is instituted in this new regulation is brokers will have to disclosed and report every six months if they have or have not received any gifts of any kind from Barclay’s staff. Since the financial crisis in 2008, Barclays has paid to date at least $1.36 billion in fines and settlements.

Along with the enforcement of this company policy an anonymous source cited that the implementation of it dates back to March 2014. Barclays has been embroiled in a serious of investigations and another one perhaps in the works is for future liabilities of $8.9 billion (according to Macquarie Group Ltd.).

In a separate report by the Guardian, Barclays is the most complained about bank. The news leaked emphasized that the bank received around 280,000 complaints in just the first six months of 2014. The official figures are according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)-the financial regulatory body of the United Kingdom (U.K).

The vast majorities of the complaints were about payment protection insurance (PPI). You can visit PPI claims online for more information and learn more on how to file a claim. Considering the financial institution paid 38 million pounds for failings over the protection of client’s assets it is the sixth time it has been fined.

On the upside the complaints about Barclays have declined 10 percent since the second part of 2013, according to the Guardian.

Finally, one of the many scandals that affected the financial sector was the mis-selling of PPI and 13 million of them have been processed since the year 2007. According to Compliancy Services the following are the reasons why policies were mis-sold and the five types are:

  • Employment status
  • PPI sold compulsorily
  • Pre-existing medical conditions
  • Insurance that didn’t match the customer’s circumstances
  • People who were not told about PPI

The financial industry is indirectly responsible for triggering much the financial crisis and the lack of government oversight led to these disastrous economic conditions that exist today. Much of these scandals come from very wealthy, money-making prestigious banks that are finally starting to see their activities closely monitored. As a result, people who conduct business with these companies need to read the fine print and really know where their investments are going.  

Digital Media Journalist! Existing contributor for Examiner and Social Media Today with a track record for web news. A former freelance writer for CBS Local Minnesota. Writing and reporting on the latest social media happenings.
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