Topic: How To Invest

Q: Please, can you and your team give me your opinion on Lloyds Banking Group plc? Thank you, Pat.

Article Excerpt

A: Lloyds Banking Group plc (ADR), $3.07, symbol LYG on New York (ADRs outstanding: 17.6 billion; Market cap: $50.6 billion; www.lloydsbankinggroup.com) offers a range of banking and financial services through its subsidiaries and associated companies. More specifically, it provides retail banking, mortgages, pensions, asset management, insurance services, corporate banking, and treasury services. Lloyds plans to suspend its share buyback program now that it’s required to set aside an additional 1.8 billion pounds ($2.9 billion Canadian) to compensate customers who were sold payment protection insurance they neither needed or wanted. These policies, which were intended to cover missed debt repayments, were often sold using aggressive tactics and, in the worst cases, banks misled customers by telling them that payment protection insurance was mandatory for loans. In other scenarios, it was sold without giving clients a full explanation of what it would, and would not, cover. Among other U.K. banks, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc has also added billions of pounds to its…