Lloyds to take 100 million pounds charge for HBOS fraud compensation

LONDON - Lloyds Banking Group will set aside about 100 million pounds to compensate customers who were victims of a fraud for which six people were jailed earlier this year, it said on Friday.

Britain's biggest mortgage lender has been under pressure to compensate victims of the fraud, who allege it reacted too slowly to their complaints.

The bank said it will provide interim payments on a case-by-case basis to assist victims in financial difficulty and appoint a senior independent lawyer to consider whether the bank properly investigated at the time.

The fraud involved two former bankers at HBOS, once Britain's biggest mortgage lender, which was rescued in a state-engineered takeover by Lloyds in 2008. They helped siphon off money from struggling businesses which were HBOS clients.

Britain's Financial Conduct Authority separately said it was resuming its investigation of the case, which had been placed on hold in 2013 pending the outcome of the police's own probe. -Reuters