The scale of money laundering, fraud and other economic crime in the UK, is thought to run to tens or hundreds of billions of pounds per year. In December 2019 the Treasury Committee found various regulatory and legislative failings in the way in which these crimes were being tackled in the UK. It urged the Government to make improvements to the supervisory system and to introduce new powers to combat economic crime. The Government agrees about the need to tackle these crimes. It set out its overall approach in its July 2019 Economic Crime Plan. The Plan covers the years 2019-2022 and draws together all the work being conducted by the public and private sector. The Royal United Services Institute said that as at September 2020, 23% of actions in the plan had been completed, 59% were in progress, 9% were overdue, 6% of actions either had no due date or had been paused.
Documents to download
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Interest rate swaps on business loans (605 KB, PDF)
Business loans, made primarily to smnall businesses, with attached interest rate ‘protection’ or ‘hedges’ proved to be very expensive compared to the rest of the market. This is largely due to the unexpectedly steep fall in interest rates following the financial crisis. Small businesses complained that they were sold complex products which they did not fully understand, or worse, that they were forced to agree to the interest rate conditions in order to get a loan at all.
A redress scheme was organised by the Financial Services Authority in agreement with the main lenders. Although it was criticised as being too lengthy and complex for many small firms, it has resulted in compensation payments in excess of £2million. It is now largely ended.
Documents to download
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Interest rate swaps on business loans (605 KB, PDF)
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