A SERVICE to help people who have lost their businesses through the misconduct of banks must provide “meaningful redress”, according to an influential parliamentary group.
Kevin Hollinrake, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Fair Business Banking, has raised concerns about the steering group for the Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) and the planned Business Banking Resolution Service (BBRS).
In a letter to Stephen Jones, chief executive of UK Finance, Hollinrake said that while the APPG has had very constructive talks with UK Finance and other stakeholders, he felt they had reached an impasse, adding: “We note that you suggest that BBRS should not be opened to complainants who are ‘unhappy’ with the outcome of a previous independent review and that we should engage with the reviews of past reviews to offer evidence that outcomes have not been fair and reasonable.
“This, however, misses the point. We are not suggesting that there should be a wholesale reopening of cases if a complainant is simply ‘unhappy’, but rather a sensible exceptions process for individuals that have documentary evidence to support their assertions that the outcome of their past redress scheme was not fair or reasonable ... A sensible exceptions process could be developed to allow consideration of cases that have merit and provide closure to a meaningful number of complainants without revisiting the vast majority of cases that have been settled.”
READ MORE: Tribunals no use for banking disputes, independent review finds
A spokesperson for UK Finance said: “The business groups’ involvement in the design is helping to shape a service that takes account of the lessons of the past and sets it up for success in the future. Once the new service is established, 99.5% of all small and medium-sized businesses will be eligible to have their unresolved disputes considered either by the Financial Ombudsman Scheme or by the BBRS.”
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