A former NatWest employee describes how branch staff were pushed into selling unsuitable payment protection insurance. The total bill for the mis-selling of payment protection insurance (PPI) has topped £12bn, with Lloyds setting aside a further £1bn last week and Barclays allocating an additional £700m. At RBS, parent company to NatWest, the group announced it has put aside an extra £400m to compensate customers, bringing its total to £1.7bn. PPI is now turning into the worst financial mis-selling scandal in history. So what were the banks up to, and how did they push worthless insurance on to millions of customers? One former NatWest employee, who worked in a branch in the north of England between 2002 and 2004, reveals the intense pressure staff were under to sell PPI:

"After graduating I needed work and was recommended NatWest by a recruitment agent. I thought working in a branch would involve helping people with their money and might offer long-term career prospects. Initially I enjoyed it, but it became apparent the primary focus was to sell PPI. "Each quarter the branch had to achieve a certain amount of sales points. We earned these through selling mortgages, packaged accounts, credit cards, referrals to the financial planning manager, and PPI. Large loans with PPI secured the most points. "Our quarterly bonus depended on how many points the branch as a whole achieved. I recall that hitting 120% of target meant our bonus would be in a higher paying threshold. Working in a branch didn't pay very well, so the bonus really helped.

"In my role as a customer adviser I had to sell 10 loans a week with seven or eight having PPI – this was known as the penetration target. There was plenty of training in 'disturbance techniques', making the customer feel anxious about their ability to repay the loan in the event of accident, sickness, unemployment or death. Every morning we would meet with the manager to discuss how many loans with PPI and other products we would sell. If a customer refused to take PPI we had to explain to the manager the reasons given and which sales objections techniques we used. "If after two weeks an adviser's PPI penetration was less than 70%, the regional manager would phone to ask why. Every day managers would receive calls to ask how many loans with PPI had been sold. The back office had a large whiteboard showing the number of loans and other products sold. When the area or regional manager was due to visit we felt under intense pressure to make sure we had sales written on it.

Read more here: PPI exposé: how the banks drove staff to mis-sell the insurance | Money | guardian.co.uk