Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Spanish bank offers full compensation to its clients

Perhaps our financial institutions should consider this Spanish Bank's gesture to their valued clients?

"Wednesday, 28 January 2009 12:03

Spain's largest bank, Santander, is to offer full compensation worth more than US$1.8 billion (€1.4 billion) to clients who lost money in an investment fraud allegedly run by the US financier Bernard Madoff. The compensation scheme covers only private individual clients.

'The group has taken this decision given the exceptional circumstances surrounding this case and based exclusively on commercial reasons, given the interest it has in maintaining its business relationship with these clients,' the bank said in a statement.' "

A BBC financial commentator said he was not surprised since the bank's reputation and relationship with client should be worth more than the US$1.8 billion. He expected other banks to follow suit or they will lose their valued clients to Santander.