TTF Blog: 26 October 2020

Last February a coalition of lawmakers in the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking gave their support to a group of people in the UK alleging that high street banks had forged customer signatures on documents.

The APPG observed at the time that: ‘In the USA, all 50 State Attorney Generals have already investigated the industrial-scale forgery of bank signatures on court documents in cases against customers.

‘The investigation resulted in penalty payments by US banks of $25 billion and the review of 4 million court cases by banks against customers. The US Department of Justice described the penalty payments as “the largest consumer financial protection settlement in United States history”‘.  

And: ‘In Australia, the Royal Commission documented evidence of signature forgery at Commonwealth Financial Planning,  ANZ Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bendigo Bank. The interim report also documented practices at the NAB, whereby individuals would sign as a witness to a client’s signature without having actually seen the client sign.’

‘We hope that with the Bank Signature Forgery Campaign, a similar body of evidence can be produced in the UK.’

Since then, the Campaign has provided the chief of the National Crime Agency, Lynne Owens, with more than 360 crime reports and 19 files of documents.

Some key allegations brought to the campaign have been neatly summarised in a short film presented by Nicholas Wilson, a former banking whistleblower who is distributing the video online. His film features, among other figures, Steve Middleton a consultant who has worked with banking whistleblowers, alleging some of them were taught to forge signatures during their training: “They were taught it was the right thing to do, that it was in the customers’ interests…” he says. 

Another key allegation was previously covered by investigative journalist Ian Fraser in his book Shredded: Inside RBS —  the ‘common joke’ at Broadland Business Park that “all the best business was done at the photocopier”. The whistleblower Mark Wright – interviewed by the BBC here –  goes on to tell Wilson that he alerted Andrew Bailey, then head of the FCA, to the name of an alleged trainer in signature forgeries.

The renewed focus on this subject is helping to bolster calls for a real inquiry on the impact of alleged financial services misconduct in the UK, perhaps akin to Australia’s Royal Commission. There is an air of Groundhog Day to this coverage, however, because we heard the same united call from campaigners last February. Investigations by law enforcement are by their nature secretive, and they have to be.

Mel Stride urging an update from Enforcement Agencies

Complainants’ frustration not to see enforcement action on bank signature forgery claims – or at the very least a public reckoning brought by politicians – is understandable. This is particularly in light of Andy Verity’s recent BBC report – in September – that no complainants had yet been contacted by the National Crime Agency. What is going on? The House of Commons’ Treasury Committee of MPs, chaired by Mel Stride, has been pushing for an update.