This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition Ammend Banking Act to deal with banks refusing to open business current accounts
Ammend the Banking Act 2009 to deal with the situation where banks deliberately stop opening new business current accounts due to national disasters, such as the pandemic. Parliament has full control of legislation in relation to banking & economic stability & can pass appropraite legislation.
More details
HM Treasury is the relevant authority for the proper operation of the banks & payment systems- https://bit.ly/3dWnS3b. Most banks currently refuse to open business current accounts for c. 700,000 new UK companies. This harms economic stability, banking system operation & business continuity. New businesses are not able to use payment processing systems- https://bbc.in/3oqR72N. FinTechs such as MachFast, Revolut, Tide, Starling, Cashplus are not sufficient to deal with this issue.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
Petitions needs to call for a specific action.
We understand that you are concerned about banks not granting requests for business accounts, but it's not clear what you want the Government to do about this.
You could start a new petition stating what changes you want the Government to make to the Banking act 2009, but we can only accept petitions about things the Government or House of Commons are responsible for, and deciding who to grant bank accounts to is a matter for individual banks, not the Government or House of Commons.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.