Bank errors cost insurance industry over £280,000 every year

by Richard Kilner

Story link: Bank errors cost insurance industry over £280,000 every year

According to research by Travelex, delays and errors by banks are costing insurance companies in the UK over £280,000 every year due to the extra time required to chase up the mistakes and delays.

International businesses making transactions into or out of the UK are more likely than not to have problems, 60% experience delays or errors.

UK insurance companies makes hundreds of these transactions each year, the research reveals, which are worth over £1.5m per company. The cost of investigating and rectifying errors and delays is reckoned to be £410 per problem, for each company, which gives an overall cost to the insurance sector of more than £280,000 for the year.

The five most common difficulties experienced are deductions/fees being taken by banks without clients’ knowledge, wrong account names, human error (either on the part of a bank or the client), bank delays and a lack of sophisticated local banking networks in some nations.

The director of Travelex’s global business payments division, Tony Wilson, explained that there is an 8% increase in international transactions year on year, and urged businesses engaged in international transactions to make their payment systems as efficient as possible to minimise errors which can cause not just financial damage, but damage to reputations and relationships as well.