Bereaved savers 'treated badly'

Maryam Moshiri
BBC business reporter

Ingrid Facius said she faced various obstacles

The way some banks treat recently bereaved customers is "inadequate and chaotic", according to the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee.

John McFall MP said that some companies had adequate procedures in place for bereavements, but others did not treat customers fairly.

He is calling for a new code of practice to ensure financial services companies act as they should.

However, the British Bankers' Association said training was in place.

"The main issues are treating people fairly at the most stressful time of their lives. We have had evidence that people have had to jump through unnecessary hurdles as a result of their business with banks and financial institutions," said Mr McFall.

"I am writing to the Financial Services Authority so that they can remind these institutions that treating customers fairly is a primary responsibility.

"They can develop a code of conduct so that it makes things easier for people at the most stressful time of their lives, rather than harder."

My big dream is that this does not happen to anybody else Ingrid Facius

Ingrid Facius lost her husband Guy to cancer a year ago when she was four months pregnant with their daughter Astrid.

At the time of his death Guy, who left a valid will, had around £20,000 invested in an Isa with financial group Equiniti.

When she tried to access the money Mrs Facius said she was met with various obstacles.

"It is quite an intense time with a new baby. The last thing I needed to be doing during my lunch hour nap time was to be ringing the company, trying to elicit some sort of response, and feeling very frustrated that I was not actually getting anywhere," she said.

After nearly a year of writing letters her situation is now in the process of being resolved.

Equiniti, the company dealing with the Isa, has now apologised unreservedly for the delay and stress she experienced in settling the estate of her deceased husband.

It blamed a combination of human error and a processing fault and said steps were being put into place to ensure that this situation did not arise again.

We would never expect people to walk into a bank, wave a piece of paper and say 'oh my husband is dead, can I have all his money' Way Foundation

But the apology has come too late for Mrs Facius who wants the system to change.

"My big dream is that this does not happen to anybody else. Nobody deserves to go through this process, they need to grieve and they need the time to do that," she said.

One bereavement support group, the Way Foundation, said it believed there could be many cases where financial institutions unnecessarily delayed payment to bereaved relatives.

The foundation's chairman, Caroline Doughty, said the problems were avoidable.

Legal formalities

"We would never expect people to walk into a bank, wave a piece of paper and say 'oh my husband is dead, can I have all his money'," she said.

"But I think what needs to happen is more training across the board so that people working for any type of institution know how to have this difficult conversation with a client who has rung up."

The British Bankers' Association said there could be delays caused by completing legal formalities, particularly if an account was not held in joint names, but it also stressed that bank staff training did include guidance on helping customers who had recently been bereaved.