Barclays has been slapped with a massive £7.7 million fine from the Financial Services Authority for mis-selling two Aviva funds to 12,331 people.

Between July 2006 and November 2008, Barclays failed to 'take one small step' to crack down on its staff who were misselling the Aviva Global Balanced Income and Cautious Income fund resulting in £692 million being invested.

The City watchdog noted that Barclays had made ‘serious failings’ in how it had sold these products, by not ensuring these funds were suitable to customers in view of their investment objectives, knowledge, experience or financial circumstances.

Investigators for the FSA found Barclays’ staff training to be inadequate for the level of knowledge required to explain the risks of these funds and ruled that product documentation was inadequate to explain the risks so as not to mislead customers.

Furthermore, the regulator found the bank to have inadequate procedures for monitoring sales processes.

The FSA’s investigation found that even though Barclays had itself identified potentially unsuitable sales as early as June 2008, incredibly, it failed to take appropriate and timely action.

In fact, of the 12,000 or so investors, most of whom were retired or nearing retirement, 1,730 complained about the advice they were given to invest in the funds - This equates to approximately one in seven investors.

During the investigation Barclays continued to carry out a past business review to evaluate the suitability of the sales of both funds: 3,099 sales of the Cautious Fund (51 per cent of all sold) and 3,378 of the Balanced Fund (74 per cent of all sold) have been identified as requiring further consideration.

As a result Barclays has already paid approximately £17 million in compensation and the FSA estimates up to £42 million further could be paid to customers who received unsuitable advice.

Margaret Cole, the FSA’s managing director of enforcement and financial crime, said that the regulator requires firms to have robust procedures in place to ensure any advice given to customers is suitable.

She added, ‘When recommending investment products, firms should take account of a customer’s financial circumstances, their attitude to risk and what they hope to achieve by investing.

‘On this occasion, Barclays failed to do this and thousands of investors, many of whom were seeking to invest their retirement savings, have suffered. To compound matters, Barclays failed to take effective action when it detected the failings at an early stage.’

In her verdict, Cole gave a damning appraisal of Barclays’ systems and controls.

She added, ‘Given Barclays’ position as one of the UK’s major retail banks, we view these breaches as particularly serious and fully deserving of what is a very substantial fine.’

The fine is the highest fine imposed by the FSA for retail failings.