Specialist lender Vanquis Banking Group is involved in legal proceedings against a claims management company that it partially blamed for a profit warning earlier this year. In March, shares in the London-listed firm fell off a cliff when it told the market it would have to book higher provisions due to mounting costs. The Bradford-based group said the update was partly triggered by administration expenses tied to a surge in third-party claims, mostly generated by a single complaints management company and predominantly linked to credit cards. Shares in the lender cratered 50 per cent after the warning, and later that month, it reported that it had swung to an annual loss of £4.4m. Its stock price is still down 55 per cent since the start of 2024. The bank said in a trading update on Wednesday that the volume of “spurious complaints” from the single claims firm remained “unacceptably high” and that it was continuing legal proceedings against the company. Vanquis Bank was among the most complained about firms to the UK’s financial ombudsman in the second half of last year, according to official figures, with 2,743 cases. Analysts at Numis noted in March that any ombudsman complaint, “no matter how...