Small businesses are backing calls from Nicky Morgan, the Treasury select committee chairman, for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to publish its report into the RBS global restructuring group.
The report, which has already been leaked, suggested the group mistreated many of its clients.
RBS denies this claim and Ms Morgan said that the report is now in the hands of an unknown number of third parties.
The report into RBS was commissioned four years ago.
The global restructuring group, a division of Royal Bank of Scotland, was the part of the bank responsible for dealing with small businesses that missed a loan payment or were struggling in other ways.
It operated between 2005 and its closure in 2013.
According to the BBC, which has seen the report, struggling companies had a small chance of re-emerging in a healthy state, with only one in 10 returning intact to the main RBS bank.
Yesterday (6 September), the Federation of Small Businesses also urged the FCA to publish the report, and welcomed Ms Morgan’s intervention.
“It’s encouraging to see a powerful cross-party committee intervene on this issue,” said Mike Cherry, national chairman of the FSB.
“The 12,000 small firms that were referred to the global restructuring group have been waiting almost four years for the FCA to publish its findings. The regulator’s report will be vital to helping business owners secure the compensation they’re due.
“It’s hard to put a price on the damage that the global restructuring group has done to the wellbeing of our small business community. More than a decade on from its launch, those who had their livelihoods destroyed by the global restructuring group deserve not only the truth, but an apology.”
In November 2016 RBS said it had set aside £400m to repay complex fees to businesses who had been caught up in their global restructuring group division.
On the same day the FCA produced a summary of its findings from its report about the global restructuring group division but did not produce the full report.
The summary produced several criticisms of the division, but added the bank was not setting out to intentionally engineer a position that transferred more businesses to this division.
Criticisms included the allegation that it failed to support SME businesses in a consistent manner and didn’t comply with its own communications policy, didn’t handle complaints fairly and was unable to exercise the correct safeguards and procedures.
rosie.murray-west@ft.com
