Clydesdale Bank has for some time looked like the bank where time stood still.
While other banks, under duress or otherwise, have moved to demonstrate some changes in culture from the bad old pre-crash days, the Glasgow-based bank's reputation has taken one bashing after another.
In 2012 evidence began to emerge that the bank's abrupt withdrawal from property financing was impacting over-harshly on many Scottish companies which were unable to refinance, many of them non-property businesses.
That went alongside the bank's unusual profile in the small business loan mis-selling scandal, which saw the Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks escape regulation over their most widely sold, and often mis-sold, complex loans.
In September 2013 the banks were fined £8.9million for miscalculating 42,500 mortgages and then hiking customers' monthly repayments to help plug the shortfall.
Two weeks later The Herald revealed how the Clydesdale was claiming a data protection principle as an excuse not to produce customer records more than seven years old for PPI claims. Within months, the bank was admitting that it did have some historic records. Former bank insiders insisted that most records could be produced, from computer or microfiche sources, if banks wanted to find them.
Last autumn the bank's former chief executive David Thorburn admitted it was heading for FCA enforcement, and that the bank had mounted a major programme of reviewing tens of thousands of PPI claims. The doubling of its provisions for PPI redress in the space of two months, to over £800m, was serious enough to prompt a profit warning at parent National Australia Bank in Melbourne.
Meanwhile Mr Thorburn had been summoned before the Treasury Committee to explain why so relatively few of the bank's complex small business loans had been included in any mis-selling review. The MPs' verdict was that the loans had been designed, over a decade ago, specifically to escape regulation, and the committee urged an overhaul of procedures.
Mr Thorburn stepped down in January ahead of the intended flotation of the banks by NAB.
Now the PPI fiasco has resulted in yesterday's £21m fine, and an unusually severe reprimand from the Financial Conduct Authority over the falsifying of information.
The bank says the doctoring occurred in a tiny number of cases, and was unknown to any management. It also observes that most other banks sold the same type of unregulated fixed rate loans. It insists that a PPI clean-up has been under way for some time, and of course that it is sorry.
But Clydesdale has never admitted to any endemic problems of culture. While the mortgage malpractice related to 2005 to 2009, yesterday's whopping fine stems from a policy devised in mid-2011, just as Mr Thorburn took over.
The two banks' estimated mis-selling compensation for complex loans and PPI is now £1.2billion, over five times last year's £203m profits. Its provisions are about the same as those of Santander, which made a £1.4 billion profit last year, and almost five times the £173m bill for compensation at Nationwide, whose profits also topped £1bn.
Culture at the Clydesdale would appear to be long overdue for change.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article