Compensation for financial loss
If you close a customer’s account without giving them enough notice, this might mean they fail to honour cheque, direct debit or standing order payments. In turn, this could lead to a direct loss in the form of interest or late payment fees, or there could be indirect losses, like damage to a customer’s reputation or adverse information on their credit file.
If we decide you were wrong to close a customer’s account, or you didn’t give them enough notice, we’re likely to tell you to reimburse them for any direct costs.
If we decide that any indirect losses occurred because the customer wasn’t able to honour payments, and that you could have reasonably foreseen this when you closed the account, we’d generally expect you to compensate the customer. We'll base the amount on the individual circ*mstances.
Compensation for non-financial loss
If you close a customer’s account without giving them enough notice, they may suffer distress and inconvenience because they can’t access banking facilities and have to find a new account.
If we decide you were wrong to close a customer’s account or you didn’t give them enough notice, we’re likely to tell you to pay them compensation if that caused them distress or inconvenience. We’ll base the amount on the individual circ*mstances.
A direction
If you’ve wrongly closed an account, we can direct you to do something other than pay a customer compensation. This could be to reopen an account, if it’s appropriate to do so.
