Provident Financial is now paying out over £30m in redress after it treated customers unfairly when they fell behind with loan repayments.

The company has been hit with the fine after a two-year investigation carried out by the FCA.

The FCA said that the fine covered the treatment of customers between April 1, 2014, and October 4, 2017, and would have been almost £4m had Provident Financial not accepted its findings.

The watchdog revealed that over 1,400 customers defaulted on their loans during the period after entering into unsustainable short-term repayment plans.

Moneybarn has agreed to compensate all 5,933 customers who could have been affected by its actions without asking for proof of financial harm from said customers, The Times reports.

The FCA concluded that Moneybarn had not provided a sufficient amount of time to its borrowers to repay their loans, nor had the company been clear about the financial consequences of customers cancelling their loans, leading some to be hit by expensive exit penalties.

The financial watchdog ruled that the breaches by Moneyabrn were serious.

Provident Financial said that it had accepted the FCA’s findings and that its practices had since been changed. The lender emphasised that all of the customers potentially affected by the company’s actions received compensation during the third quarter of 2019.