Cranston Review

The full report can be found here.

Statement from Sir Ross Cranston

Together with my team, I have spent the last seven months assessing whether the Customer Review achieved the purpose of delivering fair and reasonable offers of compensation.

There was much about the Customer Review for which the Bank is to be commended, setting out to provide swift and fair compensation to customers impacted by the fraud and appointing an independent reviewer, Professor Russel Griggs, to oversee it.

Perhaps most importantly, the awards paid by the Bank under the heading of ‘distress and inconvenience’ were generous, and beyond what a customer could hope to have been awarded by a court.

Despite the merits of the Customer Review, I have concluded that it had serious shortcomings. The most serious shortcoming concerned the Bank’s approach to assessing direct and consequential loss caused by the criminal misconduct. This part of the Customer Review, both in structure and in implementation, was neither fair nor reasonable. Other inconsistencies also resulted in unfairness, and the Bank’s general failure to communicate in a sufficiently clear and transparent way caused confusion.

I have reached the conclusion that the methodology and process of the Customer Review did not achieve the purpose of delivering fair and reasonable offers of compensation. My main recommendation is that customers' claims to direct and consequential loss must be reassessed. The report outlines that one way of doing this is by means of an independent panel, but stakeholders must have a voice on this. It may be that the reassessment process does not result in a materially different outcome for many customers however, the key difference will be that their claims will have been properly addressed, in an open and transparent manner.

I want to thank all customers who have provided me with their perspective. I appreciate that in many cases this process has brought up difficult memories. However their contribution has been vital in allowing me to conduct an open, rigorous, and fair review. I now look forward to the Bank implementing my recommendations, which it has committed to do.