Lawsuits and misconduct fines cost UK banks £53bn

Lawsuits and misconduct fines have cost Britain’s largest retail banks and customer-owned lenders almost £53 billion (€65.6bn) over the past 15 years, a new study has found.

The scale of the payouts has hampered banks’ efforts to rebuild capital, restricted the amount they are able to lend and reduced dividends for investors.

Britain’s banks have been hit by scandals ranging from the manipulation of foreign exchange and benchmark interest rates to the mis-selling of loan insurance and complex interest-rate hedging products.