the times | Saturday April 9 2022 59
Money
England governor Andrew Bailey
called cryptocurrencies the new “front
line” in scams. He said that the techno-
logy behind cryptocurrencies such as
bitcoin was innovative but also provid-
ed an “opportunity for the downright
criminal”.
“You only have to ask the question:
what do people committing ransom
attacks usually demand payment in?
The answer is crypto,” he said.
Lindberg also said that crypto-
currency companies should have to
sign up to a wider reimbursement
scheme or be banned from operating inD
ays after Elizabeth Ben-
nett visited the Bradford
branch of HSBC to com-
plain about new bank
charges a letter arrived.
“Access to your business account has
been withdrawn,” the note from the
commercial banking team said.
Since then, Bennett and 16 other
women from Shipley, West Yorkshire,
who are part of the charity fundraising
group Saltaire Methodist Church
Wives, have been battling to get back
Want a big mortgage?
You’ll need a bigger salary
B
orrowers who want larger mort-
gages now need higher salaries to
get them.
Anyone who wants a loan of 4.75
times their income from HSBC now
needs to earn £50,000 a year, up from
£40,000 before. Those who earn less
than this will be limited to 4.49 times
their income, as will borrowers who do
not have at least a 10 per cent deposit.
The change means that someone with
an income of £40,000 who until
Monday would have been able to
borrow a maximum of £190,000 would
now be limited to £170,600.
HSBC said it was nothing to do with
rises in the cost of living and was part of
a regular review of its risk appetite.
Last month Nationwide Building
Society increased the minimum salary
that first-time buyers needed to borrow
5.5 times their income under its Help-
ing Hand mortgage scheme. Single
borrowers now need £37,000, up from
£31,000, and couples need £55,000, up
from £50,000. It said this was to keep it
within Bank of England rules that say a
lender can only lend 15 per cent of its
mortgages a year at more than 4.5 times
salaries.
Halifax, Britain’s largest mortgage
lender, is handing out more though. On
Wednesday it said “resilient custom-
ers” with incomes of £75,000 or more
would be able to borrow 4.75 times their
salary, up from 4.49 times.
For years borrowers have relied on
larger loans to keep up with rising
house prices. In 2010, 10.6 per cent of
mortgages were borrowed at four or
more times a person’s income. By the
end of last year it was 13 per cent.
The average first-time-buyer’s mort-
gage was 3.59 times their salary in the
last three months of 2021, up from 2.98
times in the first three months of 2009.
HSBC said: “All mortgage applica-
tions are looked at individually to en-
sure affordability and while it is a useful
tool, a loan-to-income calculation is a
maximum, not a guaranteed amount.”
George NixonCrypto more popular than shares
O
ne in five NatWest customers is
invested in cryptocurrencies.
David Lindberg, the chief
executive of the bank’s retail arm, said
that 20 per cent of its customers held
crypto — a higher proportion than in-
vested in regular stocks and shares.
The revelation came at a meeting of
Stop Scams UK, a cross-industry body
of banks, telecoms companies and
social media platforms that was set up
to tackle fraud.
Lindberg said the volume of crypto
investing was “not a good thing for Nat-
West customers” due to the lack of reg-
ulation around crypto trading and the
risk of fraud.
The latest figures from the Financial
Conduct Authority, the City regulator,
show that 2.3 million UK adults held
cryptocurrency in January 2021, with a
median holding of £300. However, so
sharp has been the rise in popularity of
crypto that these figures are thought to
be a gross underestimate.
NatWest has 19 million customers,
meaning as many as 3.8 million are
cryptocurrency owners.
At the same meeting, the Bank ofthe UK if fraud took place on their plat-
forms. Banks have repeatedly called on
other companies to share the burden of
refunding blameless fraud victims,
although the focus has mostly been on
telecoms providers and social media
platforms rather than cryptocurrency
companies.
This week the Treasury announced
plans to make the UK a “global crypto-
asset technology hub”, which would in-
clude regulating certain types of cryp-
tocurrencies, known as stablecoins.
Lindberg also said that NatWest esti-
mated that about 10 per cent of its cus-
tomers had been defrauded in the past
year, losing an average of £500. His
comments highlighted the scale of the
UK’s fraud problem — there were
5.1 million cases in the year to Septem-
ber 2021, according to the Office for
National Statistics.
“We haven’t made much progress as
a country in preventing fraud,” Lind-
berg said. “We have to go from co-ordi-
nation to collective action. We need
formal data-sharing arrangements; we
don’t share nearly enough data.”
George NixonDavid Lindberg said that crypto
trading posed a high risk of fraudsource of their funds to prevent money
laundering and financial crime.
The bank said that it called the group
on December 21 for more details about
its account, but did not receive an
answer and the information was never
provided. Because of this the account
was closed.
As for the £653.82 the group lost
when the account was closed, HSBC
said there had been a problem with the
original cheque and a new one was sent
on April 1. It apologised for the delay.
What Bennett discovered next was
that no other bank wanted their busi-
ness — despite claims from banking
trade bodies that there are plenty of
organisations willing to take on com-
munity groups.
An application to Santander, where
she is a personal customer, was turned
down. The bank said that the group’s
constitution did not comply with theaccount they were applying for. It
received the same response from Nat-
West, while an application for an
account with Metro Bank was rejected
without explanation.
“We just want somewhere to put our
money and a chequebook, and right
now it’s looking like it’ll have to be a
pillow under the bed,” she said.
After HSBC said it would start charg-
ing groups in August, Barclays and Nat-
West closed their doors to those look-ing to switch. NatWest allows a switch
only if the account holder also has a
personal or business NatWest account.
Santander closed to new charity
groups even before HSBC began charg-
ing. It has not accepted new accounts
since March 2020, unless the account
owner holds a Santander product.
In late February Lloyds reopened to
charity groups that want to escape the
charges, making it the only major bank
to accept them.
Community groups have com-
plained of being ignored by HSBC
when they have made a complaint.
Others have said their letters were
greeted with template responses from
the bank’s “Commercial Executive
Complaints Team”, which restated the
bank’s line that the charges were “hard
for some of our long-standing custom-
ers” but necessary.
The Labour MP Siobhain McDon-
agh, who sits on the Treasury Select
Committee, wrote to HSBC’s chief
executive Noel Quinn this week to ask:
“What impact you think [these char-
ges] will have on voluntary groups, and
why the understandable concern of
those groups is being dismissed
through a template response?”
HSBC said: “We want to reassure
those that have taken the time to write
to us, and other customers, that we did
not take this decision lightly and under-
stand that price increases are never
welcome.
“We have provided free banking for
charities and community groups as far
back as our records show, but the cost of
maintaining this type of account has
increased substantially, as have cash
and cheque processing costs.ӣ653.82 owed by HSBC and looking to
find any other bank that will open an
account for them.
Bennett, 74, was dismayed when the
group, like dozens of other small chari-
ties and voluntary groups, was told that
HSBC would start charging it £5 a
month to hold its account, plus fees for
paying in cheques and other services. It
was money that could go to charity, she
said, and the charges were equivalent to
about 10 per cent of what the group kept
in its bank account.
She felt she had to complain but did
not expect the bank to close the
account. HSBC insisted that it was a
coincidence that the closure came just
after the complaint. It added that the
account was closed because the group
had not completed the “know your cus-
tomer” checks that all financial institu-
tions must carry out. The checks verify
the names of customers and check theElizabeth Bennett,
third from left,
celebrates her
birthday with the
Saltaire Methodist
Church Wives.
Money has reported
extensively on the
HSBC chargesWe complained to HSBC
— then it shut our account
A church group spoke
out about new fees.
Now it has nowhere
to put its money,
George Nixon reports
It’s looking like we’ll
have to hide our money
under the bed