Following on from stories in February and March on dual interest rates, the Financial Ombudsman Service has spoken out, saying that lenders would still be able to operate more than one standard variable rate. The news will no doubt come as a shock to some, especially as lenders like Halifax and Nationwide have paid out compensation because of operating dual standard variable rates.
However, the FOS said that they were merely establishing a ‘yardstick’ for individual cases so that lenders fulfilled their contractual promises. They also pointed out that they were not regulators for the industry and had previously acted on behalf of individual cases.