Citigroup Inc.'s Egg Banking unit of London was fined $1 million by the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority for aggressive selling of payment protection insurance, the regulator said Wednesday.
Egg used inappropriate high-pressure sales tactics in about 40% of telephone sales from January 2005 to December 2007, the regulator said.
In some cases Egg added payment protection insurance to customers' credit card purchases even when they had said they did not want it, the agency said.
Egg no longer sells the insurance and has written to customers offering a refund.
Citigroup said Wednesday that about 2% of the calls the Financial Services Authority reviewed took place under Citi's ownership of Egg. Citigroup acquired Egg in 2007.
"We take this matter very seriously and would like to apologize to any customers who have been affected," Citi said.
