Questions remain over swaps settlements as payouts begin

Laura Kuenssberg

Former Business Editor

Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA. Credit: Lewis Whyld/PA Wire

For many businesses who believe they were wrongly sold insurance products by their bank, the promise of compensation sounded pretty good.

But since the banks embarked on the process to sort out the mess, a grand total of 10 companies in total have actually had their claims settled.

That's pretty paltry compared to the 30,000 cases that are being reviewed.

The banks promise that the pace is about to pick up; 1,700 offers are about to go out and it is a complex task.

They have taken on 2,800 new staff to review the cases and have already looked at more than five million documents.

This is different to the straightforward mis-selling of PPI insurance, often tagged on to customers accounts without them even being told.

Many senior banking figures are pretty frustrated, in fact, by the situation, believing that the authorities have changed the rules in retrospect, and many of the affected customers were in fact perfectly capable of making their own decisions and were not mis-sold at all.

The impact of the potential mis-selling. Credit: ITV News

But progress so far has frustrated campaigners like Bully Banks, who are writing to the Business Secretary Vince Cable to complain about the pace of the cleanup.

From now on the authorities will be publishing the progress, or lack of, each month. The slow start will mean that those numbers are keenly anticipated.