Lloyds admits it’s running late on HBOS compensation

Lloyds Banking Group on Friday admitted it has fallen well behind its own timetable for compensating victims of the HBOS Reading branch fraud.

The bank is dealing with 67 cases where small firms were victimised by a criminal gang of HBOS bankers who bled them of cash.

In April Lloyds set aside £100 million to deal with the claims and said it “anticipated” customers would have received compensation offers by the end of June.

Today it admitted that just seven offers have been made with a further eight in the “final stages” of assessment.

Adrian White, chief operating officer for commercial banking, said: “We are disappointed that getting to offers is taking longer than we had hoped.” Lloyds says customers are taking longer than expected to provide the information needed to assess claims.

One of the victims is TV celebrity Noel Edmonds who claims to be owed £73 million.

Lloyds has made “interim” payments to 13 customers of £35,000 each on average.

Two customers have opted out of the Lloyds review and are seeking legal redress separately.

This year a judge dished out lengthy jail terms to the HBOS bankers who lived the high life on the back of what he called “an utterly corrupt scheme”. Lynden Scourfield, a former HBOS manager, got 11 years and was told he sold his soul “for sex… bling and for swag”.