Lloyds Banking Group has been hit by over £300mln worth of suspected fraud linked to COVID-19 recovery loans aimed at small businesses, according to data released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industry (BEIS) on Monday.
Britain’s commercial banks have been hit by approximately £1.1bn in fraudulent loans overall according to the data, though Lloyds bore the brunt.
Around 3.6% of Lloyds’ bounce-back loans were earmarked as “under suspicion", compared to 2.4% for Barclays, 1.7% for Natwest and 1.3% for HSBC.
A Lloyds spokesperson told Reuters: "Where fraud has been identified, we have acted promptly and have already recovered the majority of these funds without calling on the guarantee and we will continue to attempt to do so even after a claim has been submitted."