LCF investors’ wait to drag into 2021 as thousands still trapped

Investors in failed bond scheme London Capital and Finance have been handed another £6.5 million from an official compensation scheme, but some will have to wait until next year to get their money back.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) said it still has many claims to review and is unlikely to have processed them all before the end of December, despite increasing the number of officials on the case.

The team has been combing through the records of thousands of investors in London Capital and Finance (LCF), which collapsed in January last year.

Around 11,600 people, many of them scraping money together for retirement, had poured their savings into the bonds offered by LCF.

FSCS said it has now issued 1,295 decisions, and paid out just over £20 million in compensation.

About £237 million has been trapped in LCF since the scheme collapsed.

FSCS said on Thursday: “While we still have a lot of claims to review, we want to reassure LCF customers that this remains a high priority for us and we’re working to pay customers as quickly as possible.

“One of the things we’re doing to help speed up this process is increasing the size of the specialist team we set up to review LCF claims by nearly 80%. Because of the amount of data we need to review, we do not expect to complete this process before the end of December.”

Investors who have been calling for justice over the collapse faced a blow earlier this week when the former Court of Appeals judge tasked with probing the Financial Conduct Authority’s regulation of LCF delayed her findings for the second time.

Dame Elizabeth Gloster said she would need until November, in part because of a delay in the FCA handing over documents to her team.