FCA asks banks for information on account closures
Update
After announcing that it intends to carry out a data exercise looking into the basis on which recent high-profile bank accounts have been closed, the FCA recently sent out an information request to the UK’s largest banks and building societies.
The regulator stipulated that firms had until 25 August 2023 to provide information on:
- the number of customers terminated
- the number of customers suspended
- the number of customers denied services
- the reasons for all of the above
- the number of complaints received on this issue.
This included asking whether accounts have been closed due to political or other opinions expressed by the account holders. The FCA’s data exercise asked both about personal and business customers, including pawn brokers, charities and political parties. The FCA said it expected to have concluded an initial analysis of the results by mid-September and shared this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The regulator said it is also actively engaging the largest payments firms on this topic.
Links: https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/we-request-data-banks-account-closures