
CCP Fined Raiffeisen Bank BGN 5.5 M
The bank attracted customers with free life insurance, which it terminated unilaterally before the insurance event. Almost all banks offer insurance bonuses for attracting clients
Elena Dimitrova | 26.10.2009 17:08The Commission for Competition Protection (CCP) imposed a property sanction of BGN 5,584,570 to Raiffeisen Bank Bulgaria over unfulfilled conditions on mortgage contract from 2004. The fine was after a signal of a customer of the bank, who had received alongside with his credit a free life insurance for the entire period of the credit. Raiffeisen Bank offered the insurance bonus until 2007, but in this concrete case it turned out the insurance had been terminated unilaterally by the bank yet on June 1, 2006. The evidence collected on the case shows the bank has continued offering this insurance to contract for mortgage concluded and after June 1, 2006 as well. Some of the advertisement messages even read that the free life insurance was to be valid for the entire period of the credit, CCP emphasized. The regulator concludes that after the bonus was offered by end-2007 for the purpose of attracting new customers and the bank has not submitted any explanations for the reasons forcing this concrete insurance to be terminated (and, respectively, the refusal for paying compensations after an insurance event took place as start this year), Raiffeisen has obviously intended to use the free insurance offering only as a mean for attracting customers, without actually intending to maintain the service.
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