Bank chiefs reportedly slam Labour for excluding mid-sized lenders from financial services review
Bosses of mid-sized and specialist banks have reportedly urged shadow City minister Tulip Siddiq to include them in Labour’s financial services policy review, criticising the party’s favouritism towards bigger lenders.
A letter from bank chiefs seen by Sky News is said to reflect frustration among mid-tier banks over their exclusion from a review panel announced by the party last week.
Siddiq wrote in City PM that the council of Square Mile grandees would help the party work with the financial services sector, rather than introducing a “whole new set of rules”.
Figures advising Labour include Barclays chair Nigel Higgins, Abrdn chair Sir Douglas Flint and London Stock Exchange Group chief David Schwimmer.
The letter was reportedly sent on Monday and signed by bosses from big high street names like Co-operative Bank, Metro Bank and Starling Bank, as well as Aldermore, Close Brothers, Investec, Monzo, OakNorth, OneSavings Bank, Paragon and Shawbrook.
It reportedly criticised the panel for being dominated by chiefs from FTSE 100 banks and urged Siddiq to canvass a “genuinely diverse set of views from the sector [to] inform your review”.
The letter reportedly added that “while the UK is a great place to start a bank, sadly this is still not yet the case when it comes to scaling — illustrated by the numbers of new banking licences granted in recent years versus the continued dominance of the ‘Big Five’.
It is said to argue that a strong mid-sized and specialist lending industry is “critical” to the UK’s economic growth, with the sector employing some 35,000 staff and having total assets of around £300bn.
“We are more focused in regional geographies and have deeper roots in the communities we serve, operating in markets often poorly served by the large mainstream providers that are well-represented on your panel,” it reportedly added.
A source close to Labour noted that Susan Allen, the boss of the Yorkshire Building Society, was on the panel, according to Sky.
None of the banks said to have sent the letter provided a comment to City PM
A Labour spokesperson said: “Labour has changed, and we are now proudly pro-business and pro-worker. We have undertaken serious and extensive engagement with businesses about the barriers they face and will actively involve them in designing Labour’s policy solutions to get the economy growing again.
“Healthy competition among banks of various sizes is a catalyst for innovation, efficiency and improved services. We have had very productive engagement with the financial services sector and will continue to engage in the new year.”