GADFLY: SME funding is perfect chance for financial technology disruptors to enter the frame
The government should take the advice the regulator gives in its report and add small-business lending to the list of banking activities overseen by the FCA
"There can’t be all this smoke without some fire," legislator Andrew Tyrie complained at a 2014 hearing into whether Royal Bank of Scotland mistreated 5,900 business customers. For incendiary material, how about a leaked internal memo suggesting clients should be given enough rope to "hang themselves?"Parliamentarians have given the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) until Friday to publish a report the regulator commissioned into the scandal at the taxpayer-rescued lender. The FCA is dragging its feet. Helpfully, a website has done the job for it. In summary, the country’s then biggest lender to small businesses squeezed small-and medium-sized enterprises that got into trouble for profit, rather than helping them recover. The study found inappropriate treatment in an astonishing 86% of the cases it examined. In one in seven examples, RBS’s actions "could reasonably be described in several cases as contributing to a journey" that tipped some clients into liquidation, according to the...
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