Free service helping farms with unresolved banking disputes closes today

Farmers with unresolved historic banking disputes are being encouraged to register their case by the end of today with the Business Banking Resolution Service (BBRS).

A free-to-use and independent service, the BBRS resolves disputes between small-to-medium sized businesses and their bank.

The service's historical scheme, which closes for complaints by the end of today (14 February), can make both financial and non-financial awards when a complaint is upheld. The contemporary scheme will remain open.

Businesses going through will be assigned a dispute resolution specialist known as the customer champion who acts as a single point of contact and offers practical support.

The BBRS’ historical scheme covers banking complaints first registered in the period from 1 December 2001 to 31 March 2019.

Businesses may qualify for support if they had turnover between £1m and £6.5m per annum at the time of their complaint, and their case has not already been settled, been subject to an independent review, or gone to court.

This includes businesses which have since closed, merged or been sold.

The BBRS can also assess more recent unresolved complaints through its contemporary scheme, which covers cases for the period from 1 April 2019 onwards.

It is open to businesses with turnover up to £10m per annum, and total assets up to £7.5m, which are not eligible to take their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Mark Grimshaw, CEO of the BBRS, said many small-to-medium sized businesses had walked away with life changing sums of money.

"SMEs eligible for our scheme benefit from our capability to tackle complex business banking complaints and provide multiple routes to resolution, which results in better outcomes for all parties involved," he said.

“As well as financial awards, we are able to deliver significant non-monetary redress, such as changing loan exit fee penalties, changing customer loan terms and discharging people from personal guarantees.

"We urge all SMEs who think they have a business banking complaint to visit our website to check whether they are eligible and to see if we can help.”

As of 31 December 2022, the BBRS has reached 56 settlements of which 21 were the result of adjudications and 35 were settled directly between the parties following BBRS involvement.

For the first time, the BBRS can reveal that 26 of these cases are from the historical scheme - 14 adjudications and 12 conciliated, mediated and direct settlements.

Meanwhile, 21 are from the contemporary scheme, including 7 adjudications and 14 direct settlements, and an additional 3 settlements were dual scheme, where banking complaints relate to matters that happened before and after 1 April 2019.

A further 6 cases were settled before a date of complaint was established.