The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is set to examine problems with the way in which a call centre run by Deloitte handled complaints about Payment protection insurance (PPI) on behalf of Lloyds Bank.
Lloyds terminated Deloitte's contract to run its outsourced PPI complaints handling centre Royal Mint Court in central London in May this year. It is now being run by outsourcing firm Huntswood.
An investigation by an undercover reporter from the Times alleged that while Deloitte was in charge, call centre operators were taught to 'play the system' to the detriment of customers and were told to ignore possible fraud by Lloyds salesmen and that most complainants would give up if rejected the first time.
A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group conceded that there were 'issues' with the way it dealt with PPI claims, but said the comments reported were 'isolated' and 'do not reflect' the bank's standards or policies.
'This site was operated for us by a third party supplier, Deloitte. Following further investigations, we took immediate action, and in May concluded our contract with Deloitte and moved to a new supplier,' the spokesman said.
A spokesman for Deloitte said: 'Deloitte's role was to process PPI mis-selling complaints from Lloyds Banking Group customers who were sold policies by the bank, in accordance with the bank's policies and procedures. We cannot, however, comment upon the specifics of this matter due to reasons of client confidentiality.'
Deloitte said it had provided a 'high level of service' when processing claims for Lloyds since its contract for the 1300-strong call centre began in 2011.
The spokesman said: 'To our knowledge the conclusion of the contract is unrelated to matters reported in recent press articles.' Deloitte said the decision to terminate was based on Lloyds' wish to move from three suppliers to two.
The FCA has asked the Times to hand over recordings, transcripts and documents relating to its investigation at Royal Mint Court, which it says could form part of the regulator's report on PPI complaint handling across the financial services industry due to be published this summer.
