BrightHouse is to pay out £14.8m in compensation and refunds after a financial watchdog ruled the company had treated its customers unfairly.
The weekly-payment firm, which has more than a dozen stores across Greater Manchester, had agreed to pay 249,000 customers for unaffordable lending and payments which should have been refunded.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that BrightHouse had failed to be a ‘responsible lender’, and had not always delivered good outcomes for customers – particularly those at higher risk of falling into financial difficulty.
The payments related to 384,000 agreements between April 2010 and September 2016.
Jonathan Davidson, Executive Director of Supervision – Retail and Authorisations at the FCA said: “During the time in question, BrightHouse was not a responsible lender and failed to meet our expectations of firms in this sector. I am pleased that it has agreed to provide redress to those customers affected by these historic practices.