Beware skeletons still lurking in bank closets These products were almost worthless. If your bank account is emptied or hit by fraud, you are entitled to compensation at no extra charge - there is no need for additional insurance. A total of 13 institutions, including Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Santander and Lloyds, will pay out £1.3bn between them. Readers keeping tabs can add these payouts to a tiresome list of debacles: payment protection insurance (PPI), risky Keydata investments and unsuitable equity funds pushed on the elderly by Barclays and HSBC, to name a few. This, however, is far from proof that the industry cannot learn. The problem is not banks present, but banks past: almost every scandal, including the CPP case, revolves around a familiar theme that has at last begun to subside. It has always been hard to make money from customers who use free current accounts, earn interest on their savings and pay credit card bills promptly. In the past, banks fought to boost profits by selling lucrative add-on products such as PPI (credit cards) or investment bonds (savings). Most institutions no longer engage in this type of profiteering. Banks such as Santander and Barclays have pulled their investment advisers off the road. Others, such as Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC, cater only for wealthier customers. The sale of "packaged" current accounts, which cost up to £300 a year for a number of dubious-value insurance perks, has died down. And most banks are adjusting their staff incentive schemes to reward customer service before sales figures. But unfortunately it will be some time before the debris of past misdeeds has been cleared away. One of Britain's most senior bankers recently told me I'd scarcely believe how many "skeletons" still lurked in bank closets. These are issues yet to emerge - in most instances because the bruising consequences of mis-selling are still to show. A pertinent example is the sale of complex investments called "structured products" by Lloyds Banking Group between 2006 and December 2011. Structured products seem safe because your losses are capped. But returns vary wildly. Lloyds sold 255,420 of these investments during the period, according to private internal documents I've seen. Savers - most of whom were over the age of 60 - were telephoned at home by salespeople and asked to visit a branch to discuss their finances. There, a financial adviser talked of 75pc returns over five years - far outdoing the rates available on a cash savings account - with no threat to the capital. For some, it was an entirely acceptable gamble to boost returns. But unfortunately Lloyds' sales team overstepped the mark. The products were also sold to vulnerable people with little understanding of the risks. Some were left unaware that returns were based on growth in highly volatile stock markets. You can imagine the shock when £40,000 invested five years ago made a return of merely £300. The same amount in a cash savings account, which paid up to 6.35pc in 2007, would have earned £13,000. Lloyds made a handsome sum from structured product sales; many customers did not. The bank is different now. Investment advice is restricted to customers with £100,000 or more. It has a special team proactively investigating structured product sales, paying redress to customers mis-sold and suffering poor returns. All banks would understandably rather these skeletons were left buried in the past. But it would be a tragedy if the victims were left to suffer as a result. I urge anyone affected, especially by Lloyds' sale of structured products, to contact us. Write to 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT or email me personally at dan.hyde@telegraph.co.uk. We will do our utmost to investigate and put things right.