Citizens Bank of Pa. fined $5M for deceptive practices

Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania will pay a $5 million fine for alleged deceptive practices in the marketing and implementation of overdraft payment and other programs, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. Citizens Bank did not admit or deny liability.

As part of the agreement, the bank also agreed to pay a total of $1.4 million to 75,000 affected customers for the alleged violations of Federal Trade Commission regulations on unfair or deceptive acts between January 2008 and November 2011, the FDIC said.

In a related action, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined RBS Citizens, a larger, Providence, R.I.-based, subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, $5 million and order it to pay $2.5 million in restitution to 265,000 consumers.

"We take the results of these regulatory exams very seriously. We have changed the practices identified in these exam results and are working with our regulators to address any customer impacts that they have identified," said Sylvia T. Bronner, a Citizens spokeswoman in Philadelphia. - Harold Brubaker