Keydata

The Financial Ombudsman (FOS) has told an investor who alleges Norwich & Peterborough (N&P) mis-sold him a Keydata investment to seek compensation from the industry-funded FSCS instead.

Norwich & Peterborough (N&P) has confirmed troubled Keydata-backer Lifemark is in a position to repay in full the £1.5m borrowed from the building society in October.

Administrators of Lifemark, the troubled Keydata backer, have secured a three month stay of execution for the fund amid intense negotiations with a mystery backer.

A group of 700 Keydata SLS investors have raised the hundreds of thousands of pounds needed to escalate a legal case for compensation against the biggest names in global finance.

Stewart Ford, the former Keydata director whose firm's collapse drove the FSCS interim levy to the highest on record, has denied responsibility for the £326m fee and claimed advisers are a scapegoat for the FSA's mistakes.

Lobbying group Adviser Alliance is confident it will secure a judicial review into the FSA's decision to remove a complaints long-stop in financial services - and has not ruled out an approach to AIFA.

All advisers who sold low and medium risk investors Keydata products backed by life settlements face the threat of crippling compensation payouts, after a landmark early decision by the FOS.

The FSA has earmarked Keydata-style traded life policies as a product "generally unsuitable for the mainstream retail market".

The FSA has appointed three more non-executive directors to the strategic board of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), as it prepares for an avalanche of extra claims over Payment Protection Insurance and a series of investment company failures.

Lifemark must find $11m from its dwindling coffers to repay with interest a £1.5m loan from Norwich & Peterborough (N&P) and $7.5m from CarVal, as both companies back out of providing longer-term funding.