I have been involved greatly fighting the banks over the financial scandal by the major banks caused by the miss selling of complex financial products to small businesses, on Thursday I travelled to London and took part in a demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament, where inside my Member of Parliament was chairing the debate with over 100 backbenchers and senior MPs present.
The fight through Parliament started with myself when I went to my MP in July 2011, and somewhat 28 months on and having lost everything to the banks we have pushed through a redress programme agreed with the banks for some 32,000 small to medium sized businesses.
I was one of the original members of an organisation of small businesses that came together from all over the country to try to fight this scandalous activity of the banking industry this organisation is Bully Banks, more information on bully banks can be obtained from info@bullybanks.co.uk.
The cost to the banks of redress to these businesses, many of whom are within North Wales, from farmers, hoteliers, B&B owners, holiday parks and many other small businesses. We have proven that the intent of the banks was to suck funds from these businesses, and then attempt to take control of their assets to either be held onto until profit could be made or to be disposed of to preferential clients beforehand.
There is a system now in place that if any of your readers were unaware of I will briefly describe, the banks have agreed to suspend payments upon the interest rate swaps to these businesses whilst they undertake the review process, this would be important information for any of your readers who do not know of this agreement, full refunds of payments will be made and possible consequential losses paid if they can be proven.
This is now not just a national problem it is also local news, we as an area are dependent upon small businesses for the success of our local economy and employment, the banks were unscrupulous in how they targeted customers and were even worse in the methods of how they explained these products, I have currently spoken to a business man who has businesses within the care industry in North Wales, who has suffered a heart attack from the pressures and stress that this scandal has placed upon himself his family and business, I my self had a heart attack a few years back due to the pressure.
It has now been proven that it was not the customer at fault but the banks greed for profit and bonuses, this does need to be brought to the small business readership of you newspaper for the benefit of the local community so if it saves just one person and their business from the stress we have been through it will be well worth it.
Please call me on 07939233825 if you would like to discuss this further, our campaign was described on Thursday 24th October in Parliament as 'David and Goliath', David is winning.
As stated I am aware of many businesses in North Wales who have been affected and would be willing to discuss their own experiences of the torture the banks have put us small business through, me myself became homeless, lost my business, split from my wife for a period, suffered stress leading to a breakdown and now living upon job seekers allowance, even though the banks have agreed it was their fault due to the mis selling of these products.
I hope you will consider an article so as to raise the awareness to other along the coast that there is a redress process in place that will help them and their business, we cannot afford for one more business to be defunct by the bad business practices of the banks in our local communities.