Tarnished bank faces fury after it forces customers to move accounts

Hundreds of thousands of Barclays business customers are to be hit with unexpected charges when the bank forces them to change accounts. The likely outcry will be a major blow to the efforts of Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins to repair its battered reputation after it was hit by a series of scandals including allegations of aggressive tax avoidance, excessive pay for top executives and the Libor fixing scandal, which eventually cost previous chief executive Bob Diamond his job. It comes amid a fresh row over banking following revelations in last week’s Mail on Sunday that Royal Bank of Scotland plans to ask for approval to pay its bankers twice their salaries in bonuses.

Regulators announced an investigation on Friday into RBS’s treatment of business customers and there were threats from Labour leader Ed Miliband to force a break-up of the biggest lenders. Barclays told this newspaper that it planned to move 800,000 firms to its flagship small business current account, launched in May last year. The switch will mean that about 250,000 firms that pay no fees for in-credit banking will be hit with charges for each transaction......Read more here