Get Ready To Be Charged For Your Bank Account...

And this is the man to thank:

Surely, the regulator should understand that free banking for those who keep their accounts in good order is woven into this country's financial fabric – like good old fish and chips or bangers and mash.

I'm unsure why, looking at him. you'd expect him to know that or care about it. Like our PM he's yet another example of how 'diversity' isn't the panacea the progressives claim it to be.

It's a reward for thrift and should not be abandoned. Most people, especially the elderly, will simply not entertain the idea. A financial uprising? Don't rule it out. For example, we had one 25 years ago when some of the big banks wanted to charge non-customers for using their cash machines. Consumers won that battle, and I am sure they would put up an almighty fight over the loss of free-in-credit banking.

Why should consumers have to gear up again because once more the Financial Conduct Authority has proven to be a watchdog with no teeth? And for those saying 'Well, just change your bank' it's not that easy. 

Next Wednesday, the Treasury committee will grill the bosses of Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest and Santander over whether they are giving customers a fair deal – against the backdrop of a persistent cost-of-living crisis. I trust Ms Baldwin will use the opportunity to grill them over whether they intend to abandon free banking for those who stay in credit. Maybe she should also ask Mr Rathi to come along.

I doubt that will do any good. 

Who Is Running Banks?

After the Daily Mail contacted Barclays the bank telephoned Mr Sparks, apologised for closing the account and offered to reopen it, according to the businessman.

He said: ‘An exec told me the decision to close the account was automated but they couldn’t tell me why that was. I declined the offer to reopen the account.’

Why couldn't you tell him? Because 'Computer says no'..? Who programmed it? 

Mr Sparks and his sister have now been forced to set up an online business account with Monzo.

When I had a similar issue trying to navigate Barclays' bizarre complaints system to get my mother's account closed down and the balance transferred to her online First Direct account (who were superb, and I'd recommend them to anyone) to pay for her care home costs, I ran into similar issues. 

It seems banks are no longer running things. The government and/or 'the systems' are...

A spokesperson for Barclays said: 'As part of our ongoing responsibility to help prevent financial crime, and to meet our regulatory obligations, we are required to keep up to date information regarding our customers’ accounts.

'In this case, after 18 months of repeated attempts to contact the customer, including through online banking, email and post, we did not receive all of the necessary information relating to their Barclays Business account, leaving us no alternative but to close the account.

'We fully understand the issues this can cause customers and we worked hard to avoid the last resort of account closure. As a gesture of goodwill we have offered to re-open their account to allow more time for the information to be shared, which has been declined.'

Can you blame him?