By James Salmon Created 11:05 AM on 5th December 2011 UPDATED: 08:04 EST, 5 March 2012 Giant fine: HSBC has been fined £10.5 million by the FSA for giving 'inappropriate investment advice' to elderly customers Thousands of frail elderly people struggling to pay care-home fees were lured into gambling their life savings on risky investments. The ‘serious and systemic’ scandal went unnoticed for an astonishing two decades. It came to light yesterday as HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, was fined a record £10.5million and ordered to repay £29.3million to vulnerable savers it had misled. There are fears that thousands more pensioners could have fallen victim to the banking industry’s latest mis-selling scandal.
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FSA said bank's NHFA subsidiary 'inappropriately' advised 2,485 customers to invest in 'unsuitable' bonds
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HSBC fined £10.5m and ordered to repay £29.3m in compensation
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Sample of files found 'unsuitable sales' had been made to 87% of customers
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Average investment of £115,000 by customers with average age of 83
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Many of those given poor advice were more likely to die than see a profit on their investment
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The victims had an average age of 83;
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Help the Aged was paid commission for passing on names to the NHFA while the Royal British Legion listed the firm as a place to seek advice on how to pay care fees;
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Were you or a relative mis-sold an investment by the NHFA? If so, please contact the Daily Mail newsdesk on 020 7938 6372 or email news@dailymail.co.uk
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This article was amended to make clear that FirstStop Care Advice is not in partnership with NHFA. We would also like to clarify that the charity is not regulated to provide financial advice.
Although it was @placeholder which raised concerns with the FSA, it took the bank four years to spot the problems.