A Government Enquiry into Lending for Small Business

I picked up today that Dylan Jones Evans is chairing an enquiry for the Welsh Government into banks’ lending to small business. I’ll be interested to see how much they manage to unravel as Banks have collectively been in denial on the subject of small business lending. “It’s not our fault, it’s that no one is presenting bankable propositions” has been the defence for the last year or two.

Deep seated problems

I hope they will enquire not only into new applications for lending but in the behaviour of banks to their “mass market” small business customers as well. For example HSBC have been tackling any business with an overdraft and bullying them into accepting alternative lending – factoring or invoice discounting usually, often quite inappropriately. Other Banks have done the same in more limited cases. HSBC culled a swathe of business managers back in the Autumn just a few days after they strenuously denied doing so. Whether the Head office spokesman knew about the cull and was wondering how the heck the journalist I briefed found out about it or whether the Head Office Spokesman had not actually been briefed at that stage remains speculation. 

One of the scandals about the ill conceived Project Merlin last year was that Banks were counting lending figures in their Merlin stats to look good that were not new money lending at all but were simply rescheduling old lending.Not much was made of the sickly outcome of the project that was announced with vigour and enthusiasm by the government a year earlier. The idea had been to encourage Banks to lend to small business and it failed significantly to do so. 

Shocking behaviour of banks 

Regarding banking behaviour I have come across cases where the account has been sent to some kind of “recoveries” department in a cavalier fashion when a competent manager would have been able to help it steer through choppy waters with no damage to reputation or loss of capital value. 

Shocking behaviour generally,  with a bag full of contributory reasons for it all happening. There is a lot of depth to such an enquiry and i bhope they manage to get to the bottom of some of these points in the short period they have to report. 

Other articles by Bob Shepherd 

I have a number of articles on line that relate to these questions you might like to see, with links below.

finance-for-business

small-business-and-banks

banks-and-the-clipboard

bankers-not-getting-their-feet-muddy

things-aint-what

bank-lending-to-small-business-smes

sorry-bout-that

fixed-or-floating

Bob Shepherd Associates is for business finance and business building. We try to get the components in your business working together and in proportion. The small business owner has a lot of divisions to deal with and to expect to be good at them all is a tall order. Let us see what can be done to maximise the potential of your business. 

A Bankable Proposition

I have been approached to assist in finding some finance. It serves as a good example for one major problem in cases like this. In this example the basic business is a substantial farm in Southern Ireland that wishes to clear some existing loans and finance a new building as well. 

The business' Accounts show some evidence that he can meet the cost of finance from his current trading but we are going to have to explain the position with these existing loans. I can think of a couple of scenarios where that might be okay still, but we need to establish why they can't raise the money locally as would be expected. 

If he is in dispute and can explain reasonably that is one thing. If he is in trouble financially that is another. The Accounts look reasonable but we are also told he has not made payments to the 2 biggest lenders in the last year. 

The basic question will always be – why does he want to borrow in the Uk rather than locally? There have to be good reasons and a sound background or no one will touch it. If local people won’t touch it why should anyone else? That’s the thinking. We have to explain around that with sound arguments.

Any thought that the local lenders are pressing or are chasing probably wrecks any chance that we can raise money to clear the existing borrowings let alone new money as well. 

Bob Shepherd Associates has the experience and background to turn a proposition into a bankable approach, but only if it is reasonable!

Things Ain’t What?

To a large degree the traditional Bank Manager has ceased to exist. Some Twenty years ago the main stream banks split 'retail' and their 'commercial' business and headed pell mell for Business Managers working separately. Later this was refined accounting for size of business, and then they realised that they had quite large accounts that didn't actually borrow much but were still worth looking after. That meant a mix of targeting responsibilities based on Turnover as well as Lending came about. This coincided with a cultural swing towards sales in a cynical and robust way that they had never done before. 

In many cases this meant the idea of service first went out the window (and is the basis of all the claims for PPI (Loan Insurance selling) that we have seen lately). At the same time many bank people couldn't, or wouldn't swallow the change in philosophy and took the opportunity to leave. This suited the Banks anyway because the retail/commercial split facilitated centralisation of just about every function one by one, leaving the High Street premises to function as little more than cashing shops. 

The idea was to create 'centres of excellence' with a concentration of skills. This achieves an economy of staff needed to push a processing system. That was fine for a while as everyone knew all about the processes anyway, but as time went by the centres began to believe that the branch folk knew nothing about what they did while the branch folk realised that the centres didn't care about them or their customers much, as they had their workflow problems to worry about and anyway they didn't have to actually look at the customer. 

Training need 

New people appeared in branches and business manager roles so a giant 'training need' opened up with anyone facing customers having to go on an ' awareness course ' to know what to expect and how to service it for the banks' systems. The more this happens the less they know by experience. The 80/20 rule applies in shovel loads. If your case is at all unusual or requires a little interpretation, and doesn't quite fit, then you will have a major problem on your hands to get past an initial negative reaction . 

A few of the old school managers are still out there but since the Banks were shedding staff at a colossal rate with their centralisation, many of those who are still there are those with a survival instinct. They may know their stuff still but they are subject to the targets and sales pressures and the latest flag waving new ideas that their younger colleagues have in their little folders. 

Clip Board Thinking

In ten years time or less there will be nobody who came up through the old pyramid structure and has all round experience including processing, cash handling, security (collateral security for loans that is), investments and trustee work, administering a business (ie - the ‘Branch’ which was largely a business in the local community) along with staff management, premises, alarms, credit balances, lending and credit control, reporting and putting together applications plus all the business experience out there etc . 

Most of the modern bank staff wouldn’t know what a garnishee order is if it sprang up and hit them. The modern answer will be that they don't need to know, because specialist departments exist to deal with these things. And so the circle is perpetuated. Or perhaps it’s a downwards spiral. The less a customer facing manager knows (and most of these bear no relation to the public's memory of such a thing), the more he or she has to rely on their clip board training. You can't do that, the computer says no has become the reality and not an excuse. That is especially so in the retail sector. Anything out of the ordinary is referred quickly away to a central processing centre which has no personal interest in sorting it out.   

Customer Loyalty 

In short, the idea that anyone has been loyal to their bank for 30 years is a whimsical throwback and has no currency whatsoever. In the face of an application for finance the bank would have the current flow of entries through the account(s) for a year or so and would take note of the last three years' Accountant's published figures but there it would stop. What a Manager might have recorded as an opinion about a business 5 years ago has no weight whatsoever. In many cases the opinion of the local manager who has actually been to and looked the local business in to eye is a minor tick on the list. 

All this means the business case for whatever is in mind now has to stand alone largely with some comforting references to past records. There has to be a ‘way forward’ and a progressive plan for the exercise contemplated. The old idea of seeing your Bank manager for a little help to get through some choppy waters is a big alarm bell, despite what it says in all the published codes of practice. Do that and you are likely to find you are shouldered into some kind of special care department where specialist managers will look after (nurse) your account at a substantial cost to you in interest or fees with a strict sequence of management activity designed to get rid of the problem or you. 

Things certainly ain’t what they used to be. In some ways that is good. In many ways it is not. Unless there is a major change in attitude and corporate culture the whole set up is designed to get worse. Bob Shepherd Associates has the experience and the contacts to do the best for you with your Bank and if you are under pressure to see how you can get out of the mire.

'Pub Talk'

Banks get a mixed press and I for one have been very disappointed in a number of things I have seen with my clients in recent months. However sometimes the bank is justified in its view. I was once called upon by an SME to advise them because their bank was suddenly taking away their £65k trading overdraft.

The reality was that they had had a £25k overdraft which had been increased after consultation to £65k for a 3 month period to cover the circumstances. That 3 months had expired and an extension had been granted to cover some further crisis and so on. 6 months after the first expiry the bank was saying 'this can't go on, we want to revert to £25k at the end of the month'. Not unreasonable when you examine the case and quite different from what I was told initially.

By producing information, preparing forecasts and approaching the bank properly Bob Shepherd Associates managed to get the £65k retained as their normal overdraft. While I was at it I noticed the company's leasing arrangements for equipment were all over the place and I re-sheduled that lending creating £4k extra cash per month in the business.

I call it 'pub talk' where an ill informed half story gains currency. Banks are wide open to it all the time and often cannot answer without breaking confidentiality.

Bankers Not Getting Their Feet Muddy

The BBA ( British Bankers' Association) held a conference in Cardiff last week hosted by the SW Chamber of Commerce. It was a good event but I was left with a feeling of depression. Amid all the rhetoric, and the unintentionally patronising declarations of openness for business, intentions to be accommodating, and figures defending the banks' position as a key player in the economy ..... there is a fundamental lack of understanding going on which is either staggering or cynical, depending on your view point.

Bank Lending Figures 
An example is the BBA figure 85% of lending applications for SMEs are granted. Accurate I don't doubt, but far from being evidence of banks pulling their weight in this sector I think it's an appalling admission and a patronising complacent assertion.
-  It ignores those propositions that the local business manager hasn't given a nod towards.
-  It ignores the BBA's own figure earlier this month that 55% of SMEs didn't even approach their bank last year because they thought they would get turned down anyway.
-  It ignores the fact that the local business managers don't have time to spend with their sme customers who are borrowing less than £500k (say..) to knock a proposition into shape.
-  It ignores also the indifference or ignorance of the local business manager towards referring possible projects to a paid consultant who can spend the time with them to get them into shape.
-  It ignores the fact that most small business SMEs have no idea what 'shape' is in the banking sense.
To say ( as was done at the conference) that 2/3rds of SMEs did not seek finance last year as corroboration of the Banks provision of service being okay in a straightened market is paradoxical at first glance and a head in the sand concept at second glance.

Banks and Project Merlin
Banks are not in the business of not lending. A good phrase to use but not backed up by observations on the street. The Project Merlin ( banks agreed to have targets for SME lending imposed) figures are all behind. No surprise there. Then you realise that most of what has been cheerfully put forward as banks doing their bit despite the reluctance of customers to come forward with sensible propositions, is accounted for by repeated lending and renewals of facilities and not new money.
It is the reluctance of Bank seniors to get their feet muddy that bothers me.

Bank Lending To Small Business SMEs

Business lending by the UK's largest banks fell during the last quarter (BoE  Q2 2011) despite what Barclays says about its own performance. Of course it did - any consultant working on a local scale will report similarly.

Until Banks get training for their local business managers and then trust them to exercise some discretion to liaise with the Credit/Lending department the position will remain. So too will the belief out there that Banks aren't lending to small business. Therefore the business economy will remain flat.

The first signs that someone is thinking they should do something about it that I have seen came at a local level with an invitation to talk by a Regional Business Manager for one of the big ones. His new on the block business manager had 4 years in the Bank and 3 weeks on 'the Business Side'. An awareness course and a clip board to follow, is all he had, plus a few ideas he picked up from the family shop. Oh dear. Who is going to talk to him with any expectation of understanding? 

As it is, a report has said that last year 55% of businesses didn't even bother to go to their Bank because the word is out that they will be turned down. 

Lending Jig Saw

It’s a bit like a jig saw. Whenever I am asked to help raise some finance, be it grant, bank or investment I start looking for the jig saw. The pieces of the puzzle have to fit together, the picture has to make sense and relate to what I have in front of meand as every jig saw puzzlist knows, you start with the outline.

It doesn’t really matter how much the sum involved is, in so far as the principles remain the same. During this last week I was approached by someone wanting to raise £42million. My very first thought of course was that is a large sum to ask for, it’s very specific and I wonder what sort of project we are dealing with.

As I explained the principles will be the same no matter what the sum. The first pieces of the jigsaw I am looking for are that my caller moves in those sorts of circles, has some substance and perhaps other worthy people involved. I am also looking for some appreciation of a scheme to put it together with other contributions to come from elsewhere, to form a balanced package of resources that stack up for a sustainable project that is viable and sustainable over a period beyond what it takes to pay off the lending or investment

As it happens my caller had none of those things, was not contributing anything himself and I have no idea how he arrived at that particular sum.  I concluded within a sentence or two that he was a victim of what I have called ‘pub talk’ or perhaps he had just had a new phone with a calculator on it. Diplomatically I pointed out that a problem he had with that sort of sum is that people are (rightly) wary of a quick rich scheme and whatever the true case he is up against all the scams and freeloading frauds ringing alarm bells. His credibility and that of his scheme needs establishing before any further examination takes place. I also said I looked forward to seeing him quoted in the FT in a couple of years. I don’t really expect that. In short, I think he was the missing piece looking for his jigsaw.

So what is needed with a proposition is a balanced basket of things, starting with You;  who you are and where you are coming from.  That means what experience you have, what background you have that gives any comfort that you know what you are talking about.  Next is some sort of contribution yourself or yourselves.  The world is full of bright ideas looking for a philanthropic backer fancying a punt. Not many find one. The world is also full of people who say if only they had a few thousand more, just think what they could do!

So, Background first, then ability, then means. That is a shapeless concept that comprises your resources and your worth. That may not be money; it may be expertise or equity in a property for example. It means your substance and less so, your standing.

Next we look at idea, the ‘proposition’.  If the first things are in good order it is unlikely you will be pursuing a fatuous scheme with no viability, however that remains to be seen. The project in mind has to be reasonable. That is legal, that is well balanced, that is ‘a good idea’ and capable of being shown to be so. There is very little that is actually new in the broadest sense. When Dyson started making his carpet sucking and brushing mechanical devices he had some new ideas, and not least the price it seems to me, but the concept of a vacuum cleaner already existed. An interesting side issue is the concept whereby a product becomes known by its maker – say ‘a Hoover ‘ to anyone and they know exactly what you mean and think nothing odd if it is made by Electrolux or anyone else.

Only now in our fictional account of an ideal finance proposition do we come to the amount. If we have come this far with full marks, it is unlikely that the amount is going to be untoward.  Look how far down the list we have come.  The idea that you go to the bank and they say how much do you want and check on the repayment only exists where all the other factors are a given.

In a former life I once had a respectable gentleman come to me saying he wanted to borrow £150 thousand. He said, ‘you know who I am and where I live’. I asked what it was for and he said he wasn’t going to tell me. In that case I am not going to lend it to you, I informed him politely. I was thinking ‘this is not going well’ and as a passing concern wondering how much flak and trouble he was about to cause me with some senior Bank official he probably had as a mate at his club somewhere.

The repayment scheme or exit strategy for an investor is next. There are different schemes with varying labels at any Bank. Most simply, there is an overdraft – an agreed limit to which you can do what it says and draw more than is in your account. Some banks are busy trying to dispense with business overdrafts which is a pity because a facility of variable amounts to be used to iron out the bumps in a trading pattern is sometimes the ideal vehicle. 

Then there are loans, which is an overdraft on a separate account with an agreed transfer amount taking place. More often these days there is a fixed loan, which has a fixed interest rate and therefore a definite calculation which enables a certain amount for a repayment transfer to take place bringing it right to the penny in a fixed number of repayments. Anything else is a minor variant on these basic types of lending. It has to make sense. It has to be affordable and it also has a relationship with the term of the loan. There comes a point on the graph where extending the term does nothing to reduce the amount of the repayment because of the compound nature of the interest calculation.

Once the background, the characters involved and the amount makes sense we are almost there. Security comes next. No Bank will ever lend just because there is security available. ( q.v. my self important friend with the £150k request). What might happen is that they don’t lend because there is no security.  That would be unusual in the context of the process we have seen but what is more usual is that there is not enough to cover the case. A Bank will look at property (typically) and give it a security value of around 70% of its market value. There are good reasons for that to be explored in another article. Other assets may be at a lower value still. In company terms that is often the case with machinery or debtors for example which have different considerations.

These days we have a government guarantee scheme that might pick up the case for a cost, if the proposition is good but falls down only because the available security is a bit short. Currently that is extended until March 2011 but is so useful that it could be continued or rise up in another form after that, I should think.

There are other matters to be brought in such as Life Cover for the principal people involved. The structure of the company/partnership/business needs looking at and there a host of sub issues along the way. Using Bob Shepherd Associates gives you a chance to  air all this first before going to the bank and then when you do, the Bank is friends with your proposition  because it all hangs together in a sensible and workable framework. The jig saw is complete. 

All Change Is Not All Good

The call for cheques to be abandoned as a method of payment by 2018 is an inevitable step in the direction dictated by progress. Over the last 40 years the methods of payment have multiplied along with advancing technology and it is a wonder that cheques have maintained such a stronghold. Some 663 million transactions were conducted by cheque last year apparently.

What I have not heard mentioned however is the knock on effects. Is this also another nail in the coffin of the Royal Mail service? What are cheques used for nowadays? Shops do not take them anymore. The big supermarkets abandoned them a year or two back. I recall surprise at my own irritation when a customer paid by cheque in front of me in the queue and I wondered how it had crept up on me that the lengthy process of paying by cheque had become unacceptable.

Cheques are used for payments by post mainly. Of those millions of transactions possibly 75% were postal payments. That’s a lot of revenue for the post offices to lose. A good proportion of those payments are possible by some other means. The minority without a computer these days will necessarily be fewer by then. Those with an antipathy towards technology will have come to terms with on line banking.  Everyone will learn their pin number.  I witnessed an elderly lady checking with her daughter in a shop ‘Is my pin number 2036?’  There was an embarrassed shuffling all round at this flagrant breach of security etiquette.

So changes have a rippling effect beyond the obvious. The introduction of card payment mechanisms meant distance ordering became more available. Cash machines meant initially the availability of cash outside banking hours and then as machines were installed in remote locations the need to visit the Bank disappeared almost entirely.  The effect of this was that the Banks no longer have a captive audience they once had and sales targets assumed a greater importance. The banks have long been sectioned off into Retail and Commercial with the Retail arms dumbing down their longstanding staff and recruiting new staff as sales people. Gradually any expertise you might have found in the Branch has retreated with the retirement of experience leaving training anomalies all over the place.

I had an argument in Lloyds TSB a few months ago about a simple procedure with Executor and Trustee accounts.  The experience of the supervisor I was allowed to see was limited to some form filling and the processing centre she consulted at my insistence was not giving way. I should not have bothered. The understanding was not there anymore. I had dared to step away from the script on the clip board and no reasoning was to be tolerated from a mere customer. 

So the technology is useful. It speeds things up. The volume of transactions through the Banking system these days would never have been possible without it. It increases security enabling checks and counter measures no one would have thought possible a few years ago. The other face of the coin is that eCrime has become the subject of a special team for small business awareness. Frauds are still there, a tiny proportion of the overall figures, but enormous in their own register. Technology also standardises things, introducing efficiency but losing individuality and flexibility. It makes things possible. It makes things impossible. 

Change is good but not for its own sake. There are always losers. Quality, service, value (and not just the price) are all affected. As a small business you have to keep up with what is around if only to dismiss something as not relevant yet. Be aware of the market, your resources and the change in the wind. Your customers will too, so listen when they pass comment and do not dismiss them.  In the midst of it all there is advantage to be had by getting it right.

See Bob Shepherd Associates for practical help and guidance for small business. 

Banks And The Clipboard

Apply a solution to something and Pareto’s 80/20 rule kicks in every time. In the world of ‘Business vs. The Banks’ - which is how many people see it - there are 2 things that are happening with banks that are not well realised.

I don’t like either of them. This is not a case of ‘take me back to the good old days’, though I am tempted to suggest we did not carve it up so badly then. As a business on one hand or a Bank manager on the other, you knew where you stood.

The point is that Banks have taken away most of the local discretions. There were reasons for doing so, some of which were brought on by the severing of the old trodden path of promotions that gave a manager an all round education in both handling people and handling business circumstances over a number of years. The tutelage of senior managers by example was part of the mix and usually the result was a manager who had been round the block, knew the Bank’s operations intimately and had had time to build his own skills in gauging business propositions for the Bank.

There are not that many managers left who came up through the ranks in this way. Those that are, tend to be in senior roles, and the majority of businesses are left far beneath them. Even for them the discretions are heavily managed from above. This means 2 things. It gives the Bank a stronger control over the lending book. Policies and Directives can be applied evenly and technology can be used to grade and report on track record to give a measure of risk. 

At the sharp end the business manager has to submit an application for approval to a lending centre often far away. The applications are processed and reviewed according to set measures by relatively junior officers before signing off by a senior lending officer. Neither has seen the customer, or been to the premises, or looked the business in the eye in any way at all.

So, as a business manager, with half an eye to protecting a reputation and building some kind of career, there is a disincentive to submit anything for approval that isn’t ‘watertight’. Despite having targets and other steering mechanisms to attend to, and the more junior the manager the less forgiving they are, he/she is disinclined from the start to put up anything that is not liked and does not possess a belt, braces and a safety chain.

Again there are good reasons for placing a note of caution centrally on such industries as construction, transport, retail, leisure and entertainment, but the caution sticker has branded everything in those less favoured sectors. The balance of risk and probabilities has been skewed too far. It is all very well for the Government to issue exhortations to the banks to lend more freely, and the Government’s loan guarantee scheme has a helpful place, but that overall cautionary inclination is paramount. The Banks can say they are open for business, they are lending and they welcome approaches. All of that is true, but the mechanisms that have developed do not support this in practice.

The local discretion has gone along with a need for much experience. And so too the inclination of the local manager to bother with anything that is not going to get a straight ‘approved, on the basis submitted’ has gone too. The clip board now rules and it is not particularly okay.

Blame Society generally. Blame Globalism. Blame the Economy. It’s why everything is controlled from a far away call centre who has no idea where you mean;  it is why services cannot cover the needs of locals. It’s why it isn’t worth complaining a lot of the time because ‘they’ don’t know what you are talking about. Local service is a luxury no one seems willing to provide because 80% of the time an overarching half baked gloss will do. But that is another topic.

For an informed view of your business banking and finances see www.bobshepherdassociates.co.uk

Fixed Or Floating?

A long time solution for a bunch of loans or an overdraft that has become solid is a Consolidation Loan. With it the Bank gets reassurance that the debt is actually making progress, the customer gets a manageable outlay that is reducing their debt each month and sometimes the repayments can be less overall than what has been gathered along the way. It only works if it is done in time, collates all the debts into one package and is actually affordable monthly.

The banks are under pressure to build up their Balance Sheets after a period of loose living, but they are also under pressure to help the business community by lending more readily. The two things are incompatible forces and something is not right here. In the days when a local manager knew his customers and was largely responsible for keeping a paternal eye on their excesses he had a discretionary limit within which he was allowed to operate. There were checks, and monthly printouts and lending reviews of varying depth in which the manager’s lending was held to account and if necessary was placed under report to the Area Office.

During the last few years a drive for cost cutting involving a comprehensive move to centralised working has left the local manager with no discretion and the newcomers, without the skills and experience of old. No longer are the principles and canons of lending drummed home. The clipboard has taken over, certainly for the lower rankings. If the customer fits the latest criteria set, then help is available. If it does not, then there is no leeway. Unfortunately the lack of discretion has meant a lack of flexibility as well. In a strange paradox, while it is all centralised the policies could be set at a level but there is still a reliance on the local manager agreeing to put forward the proposition. Is he going to risk his career advancement with string of frilly business ideas?

But having frightened themselves the banks are not about to loosen the central lending reins anyway, no matter how many meetings the Chancellor hold for the chaps at the top. And the system is not flexible enough to do so quickly.

What they can do however is give out consolidation loans. Helpful sometimes, but I have recently observed a sting in the tail. The rates have been of the order of 7% above the Base Rate, which used to be considered a penal rate for commercial lending at one time. Lately I have seen that rate agreed as a floating rate. That means what still is a relatively expensive rate now, with Base Rates low, will become injurious when the rates rise again over the next few months. These are locked in for 3,5,or 10 year loans perhaps. It is not hard to see those rates approaching short term Credit Card rates when the Base Rates go up again. Those rates should be 7% FIXED. That means they will stay at 7% for the life of the loan which is quite a different matter.

The naive customer will be unaware that the nice Bank who has helped him out with his consolidation exercise has effectively stitched hi m up and built in a cushion of protection for its profits to help feather its balance sheet nest.

Bob Shepherd has contacts and an in depth knowledge of Banks in the Business community. He has lectured in Corporate Finance and written courses on the relationship of Business with its Bank. A number of articles on practical banking matters have been published and many appear in these pages. Using this knowledge and others Bob Shepherd Associates is in an excellent position to help with Business finance and relationships with the Bank.

Banking Is The Second Oldest Profession.

In the late 1990s the banks were going through a relentless drive to centralise, to set up centres for processing anything that moved. The UK staff of one major Bank was reduced in number from some 86000 to around 35000 in the space of three to four years. That was remarkable. It meant that anyone who fancied to go was given a package and it didn’t matter who they were, or what experience they had.

It was all right for a while. Those left on the front line in the branches knew what was going on anyway. Any cracks in the presentation to the public were covered very often. Then as new people came along they had to be trained in a different way. Now the centres could no longer rely on the front line staff covering for them. The branch staff no longer knew what they did. The masters became the slaves in the operations. What started out as services to the front line became the system that everyone had to follow.

Branches were closed as no longer being economic to operate and sold off for wine bars. What happens now is that the branch staff who everyone still thinks of as their bank, their manager etc have a retail position only and no discretion or power. They have no need for qualifications any more . The old idea of a Banker being in a profession has gone. The Chartered Institute of Bankers is hanging on as another trading name for the Financial Services Institute.

An business can approach their Bank. If you want to do so with all the ticks on the list in the right order or you want to fight your way through the banking hoops in some other way have a word with Bob Shepherd Associates who have the experience and the contacts to help you.