Bounce back Fraud has had an unexpected impact – and now new businesses need urgent help from the Chancellor.
Let’s look at the situation. It is currently extremely difficult for a start up business to open a business bank account. The main high street banks are not accepting applications for new businesses. This is, as you’ll already know, at a time when many people are giving self-employment a go due to a redundancy or pivoting an existing business.
You may be asking why? The reason appears to be that once an account is in place new businesses can apply for a bounce back loan and the banks are reacting by stopping the ability to access accounts. Add to this that people are avoiding cash as a payment method due to the virus transmission risk – End result: New businesses are finding a problem at the first hurdle.
Without a business account, you can’t apply for VAT registration which again, causes a further problem. The only option appears to try a challenger bank but we have heard of harsh criteria for even those bank to open a business account.
We’re calling on the Chancellor to try an unstick this log jam. What do you think?
