The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has reached decisions on another batch of claims related to the collapse of London Capital & Finance (LCF).
In the latest update, the scheme confirmed that 844 investors have been deemed eligible for compensation, as they received misleading advice from the investment firm.
The FSCS paid out £5.1m to 281 victims in June 2020, with the latest payouts taking compensation paid so far up to £13.5m ($17.3m, €14.8m).
More than 11,600 people were sold LCF mini-bonds.
But the road is still long for those awaiting decisions, as the lifeboat scheme previously revealed it was not going to be able to reach decisions on all LCF claims by September, as expected.
This is because it had to set up a dedicated unit to retrieve additional evidence.
Working as quickly as possible
“We have increased the rate at which we are issuing decisions to LCF customers,” the FSCS said. “We have now issued 844 decisions and paid out over £13.5m in compensation, and we expect the volume of decisions to increase further in the coming months.
“The specialist team we set up to review these claims are continuing to analyse all the evidence we have collected. This includes telephone call recordings, emails, records within LCF’s customer database, and an additional 100,000 emails we gained access to [in June].
“Gathering all this evidence ourselves has meant LCF customers do not need to take any action or send us any other evidence at this stage unless we ask for it.
“Assessing the additional information means we will not complete this process in September as we had expected. But, as we understand more about these claims, we will aim to provide a more definite timescale as soon as we can.
“This is a priority for us and we’re working to pay compensation to LCF customers as quickly as possible.
“We understand this has been a distressing experience for LCF customers and appreciate the patience they have shown,” it added.