Updated regulations came into effect from the start of August for any organisation whose business is monitored by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is pretty much everyone in the financial sector, including the banks. The regulations, known as Consumer Duty, set the standards expected of regulated businesses towards their consumers. I’m not sure that many of us ever knew such a requirement existed!

We all know the banks don’t care about their account holders from just looking at the way in which they have systematically closed branches. In so doing, this has prevented us from having any contact with their staff, or at the very best made it really difficult for us to chat to someone who can speak with authority on the bank’s behalf.

Making it easy for the banks to show an uncaring attitude

It’s all part of sending us online, of course. I know that’s the modern way of delivering services, but the absence of the ability to communicate directly with bank staff makes it very easy for the banks to show an uncaring attitude that bears all the hallmarks of bullying. In the last few years, they have taken this to a new level by closing accounts without any explanation and sometimes no notice either.

They hide behind their responsibilities under Anti Money Laundering legislation, which obviously have to be taken seriously, but which they are using as an easy excuse for closing accounts in what appears to be a random fashion. They’ve done it to thousands of customers, causing distress for all of them over how they are going to pay bills and whether they are ever going to see again the money they had in the account.

They have to provide a proper service

They have to be made more accountable for their actions and to behave in a way that provides a proper service to customers, including eliminating actions that cause ‘foreseeable harm’. In principle, the updated Consumer Duty should mean that closing or freezing accounts with no explanation is unacceptable to the FCA and should therefore become a thing of the past, save for those few occasions where Money Laundering or fraudulent activity is genuinely suspected.

Whether it does or not remains to be seen.