38 2GM Tuesday May 17 2022 | the times
Business
Critics are calling for a banking
industry compensation scheme to
be scrapped after it emerged that it
had produced only six financial
awards almost two and a half years
after it started accepting cases.
The Business Banking Resolution
Service, which is thought to have cost
banks more than £30 million in set-
up costs, was established in response
to a slew of scandals in the industry
and is supposed to provide a way for
tens of thousands of companies to re-
solve disputes with lenders.
Before its launch, Stephen Jones,
at the time head of the banking trade
body, said more than 60,000 small
and medium-sized firms would be
“in scope”. However, as of the end of
March, it has received only 776 “reg-
istrations”, 161 of which were still
“live”. There had been six financial
awards, including modest “distress
and inconvenience” payments, re-
gardless of whether complaints
were upheld.
The Business Banking Resolution
Service did not say how many pay-
outs had been the result of upheld
complaints and declined to say how
much had been paid out. Alexandra
Marks, its chief adjudicator, left the
organisation for personal reasons
this month.
Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative
MP and a member of the Treasury
select committee, said that “heavily
restricted eligibility rules” were to
blame for the scheme’s poor per-
formance. He said the rules had
“conspired to avoid the very things
we’ve campaigned so long and hard
for — justice and compensation for
those who’ve been denied it.
“The run-rate for new complaints
is around 20 per month, which is
also pitifully low for such an expen-
sive and complex scheme.”
Hollinrake, who is also co-chair-
man of the all-party parliamentary
group on fair business banking, said
the scheme should be scrapped inT
Enterprise
Network
Zero tolerance
Julian Richer, founder of
hi-fi retailer Richer
Sounds, makes the case
for employers “binning”
zero-hours contracts
Exit with care
“No matter the plan or
the discussions you have,
when you don’t have
ownership you
lose control,”
says Sally
Wynter, left,
about life after
selling her Mohu
drinks brand.
Travel often
Time spent travelling to
overseas trade shows is
time well spent, argues
Susie Ma, founder of
Tropic Skincare
Sign up now for The Times
Enterprise Network’s
weekly newsletter for tipsand insight from Britain’s
leading entrepreneurs
thetimes.co.uk/newslettersow
lo
s
W
abo
sellin
Elon Musk has reportedly suggested
that a lower price for a takeover of
Twitter was “not out of the question”
after declaring last week that he was
putting the deal “on hold”.
Musk was quoted at the
All-In Summit in Miami
yesterday as casting
fresh doubt on the
$44 billion acquisi-
tion and saying that
he was waiting for
an explanation over
the number of spam
accounts on Twitter.
The Tesla chief ex-
ecutive said on Friday
he had concerns that
there were more fakeTwitter price may be cut, warns Musk
accounts on the platform than the “less
than 5 per cent” the social media com-
pany claims. Concerns that he would
seek to renegotiate or even walk away
from the deal led shares in Twitter to fall
by more than 8 per cent in New York
yesterday. They closed at $37.39,
lower than the day before
Musk revealed his Twitter
stake early last month.
Musk also confront-
ed Parag Agrawal,
Twitter’s chief exec-
utive, on the social
media platform yes-
terday over the com-
pany’s estimates of
spam accounts.Agrawal had tweeted a thread ex-
plaining Twitter’s methodology,
stating that internal estimates of
spam accounts on the social media
platform for the past four quarters
were “well under 5 per cent”. Agraw-
al wrote: “We don’t believe that this
specific estimation can be per-
formed externally, given the critical
need to use both public and private
information (which we can’t share).”
Musk, 50, responded to Agrawal’s
defence with a “poop” emoji. “So
how do advertisers know what
they’re getting for their money?
This is fundamental to the financial
health of Twitter,” Musk wrote.
Analysts at Wedbush Securities
said Musk was still committed to the
deal but that the “bot issue” could be
an excuse to push for a lower price.Alex RalphTwitter’s shares fell after
Elon Musk’s commentsat the
ami
ng
ey
hat
fakelower tha
Muskr
stake
M
ed
T
u
m
te
pa
spaTw itte
Elon Mfavour of increasing qualification
limits for businesses at the Financial
Ombudsman Service.
The resolution service started
accepting “pre-launch” registration
of cases in December 2019. Its full
launch came in February last year. It
was set up in response to recom-
mendations made by an indepen-
dent review led by Simon Walker, a
former boss of the Institute of
Directors, in 2018. A “backwards-
looking” element of the system
examines unresolved complaints
linked with past scandals. This is due
to close next February. There is also
a contemporary scheme that is sup-
posed to be a permanent fixture.
Antony Townsend, chairman of
the service’s liaison panel, an inde-
pendent advisory body charged with
tackling issues with the scheme, said
his group was “working with BBRS
to try to understand what is behind
these statistics. The numbers are
low and we need to know why.”
A source close to the scheme said
that reforms would have to be
radical: “Saying BBRS needs an
overhaul is like saying a tank that’s
been blown up could do with a ser-
vice. It’s completely defective.”
A spokeswoman for the service
said: “We are subject to the eligibility
criteria that have been set for us by
policymakers. We can only look at
cases that fall within those set
criteria. The number of outcomes
we can deliver is dependent on the
number of eligible cases we receive
and we continue to encourage
everyone with an eligible complaint
to come forward to register with us.”
She added 22 other “settlements”
had been reached as a result of com-
panies engaging with the service.
A spokeswoman for UK Finance,
the finance trade body, said: “BBRS
provides an independent dispute
resolution service for larger SMEs.
Its creation means that around
99 per cent of small businesses now
have access to either the BBRS or
the Financial Ombudsman Service.”Bank redress
scheme ‘is
completely
defective’
James Hurley Enterprise EditorBig cinemas
gunning for
customers
with upgrades