Money Round-up Video: Holiday money, Clydesdale PPI fines and pension mortgage warnings

The Independent’s Personal Finance Editor Simon Read talks over the latest Money news

Family holidays are at risk from fraudsters (Getty)

This week: when should you buy holiday money?: Clydesdale fined £21m for PPI failings: pension mortgage warning

Holiday money – why should you organise it now?

Have you booked your summer holiday? Whatever your plans are, sorting out your travel money now could save you the price of several beachside cocktails.

To see our interview with Bob Atkinson go to Bob Atkinson interview

Clydesdale Bank has been fined a record £20.7m for “serious failings” in the way it handled payment protection insurance mis-selling complaints.

The Financial Conduct Authority said staff from the Bank provided false information to the Financial Ombudsman Service in response to requests for evidence of the records Clydesdale held on PPI policies sold to individual customers.

In the most serious cases, a Clydesdale team altered printouts for the Ombudsman to make it look as if the bank held no relevant documents, and deleted PPI information from printouts listing products sold to the customer.

The fine relates to complaint handling between May 2011 and July 2013 and led to up to 42,200 complaints being rejected unfairly and up to 50,900 upheld complaints resulting resulted in inadequate redress for customers.

Did you take out a pension mortgage? You could be facing financial disaster

Michael Williams was advised to take out a pension mortgage in 1988 and has regretted it ever since. He has just been forced to put his family home in Maidstone, Kent, on the market after being let down by a series of advisers and regulators.

Jane Knight was much luckier; she managed to avoid a similar fate: “We chipped away at our mortgage by making overpayments over the years and were very fortunate to inherit a modest sum which enabled us to repay our mortgage,” Jane says. “Otherwise we would have found ourselves in a difficult position.”

She’s still angry, however. ”It is wrong that no one has been held accountable for the promises that were made to people about pension mortgages. After all, not only did these promises turn out to be pie in the sky, but no one pointed out any of the risks involved.“

Read the full story here Pension mortgages leave a sting in the tail