Banks cautious about opening business accounts?

[csearle]

Anyone have any idea why banks seem reluctant to open business accounts for people?

Friend of mine, self-employed, circa £250K turnover, steady growth for decades, has now succeeded opening such an account but had has several refusals along the way apparently.

AFAIK he ought to have a good credit rating.

C.

[bungeejumper]

Does this help? https://smallbusiness.co.uk/most-banks- ... s-2551370/

Barclays recently closed the long-standing bank account that we use to fund the maintenance programme for a property that we own. Each of the leasehold tenants pays an annual sum into the pot, and we then use it to pay the builders. Simple, except that apparently they've rejected us under the money laundering rules!

The banks are under no requirement to tell you why they don't want you, and usually they'll refuse to give you a reason. But it seems that one of our leasehold properties is ultimately owned by an expat in Mexico, and ooo-er, you know what those dastardly foreigners are like with their drugs and their loud music and everything. Better get the bargepoles out! Other UK banks have refused to deal with UK expats in Europe, who are having their requests refused because Brexit has left us without recourse to the EU financial passporting system. (Or something like that.)

We also had a refusal from Lloyds, but we eventually got an account with NatWest. Which was something of a relief, because we are required by law to have a bank account for the maintenance fund, and it was a bit unnerving to find it impossible to do so. Natwest is going to be getting more of our business from now on.

BJ

[bluedonkey]

I manage a HSBC current account which has been open for many years with unsurprising debits and credits. With the rise in interest rates we decided to open a savings account alongside the current account. It was almost as if we had to go through the whole account opening procedure for a new customer. Very tortuous and errors from HSBC led to me formally complaining which resulted in £200 compensation. Which was nice.