Don’t get de-banked!
15th May 2024
Why do businesses get de-banked?
MP’s on the Treasury Committee have recently looked at an issue that has been creeping up on some SME’s recently and causing real problems – where your bank shuts your account without your instruction and without warning.
The committee have discovered that this has occurred 130,000 times over the last 12 months:
- Barclays 78,750
- HSBC 25,395
- NatWest 20,400
- Lloyds 8,115
- Santander 2,143
- Metro 5,051
- TSB 1,443
Banks cited the main reasons for this as:
- Customers failure to comply with anti-money laundering ‘know your client’ information requests
- Changed risk appetite (based on geography or nature of the business)
- Trying to avoid reputational risk
The Treasury Committee are now recommending to the FCA that banks be forced to be more transparent about this.
Disclaimer - All information in this post was correct at time of writing.
