British regulator fines Vodafone 4.6 million pounds for failing customers

Britain's telecoms regulator Ofcom said it would fine Vodafone a record 4.6 million pounds ($5.60 million) for customer failures, including not crediting accounts when mobile phone users topped up.

The regulator said Vodafone also failed to act quickly enough to identify or address the problems, which stemmed from the company transferring to a new billing system.

Some 10,452 customers collectively lost 150,000 pounds over a 17-month period between the end of 2013 and April 2015, Ofcom said on Wednesday.

Vodafone said it deeply regretted the system and process failures and had refunded the vast majority of customers.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Kate Holton)