Swedish bank voted top by UK small firms

BRITAIN’S smallest and newest banks have emerged as some of the most favoured among small businesses in a monitoring system set up by business groups and the Treasury.

The findings of Business Banking Insight (BBI), which ranks banks based on recommendations from small firms, also suggest personal service and local decisionmaking are highly valued by smaller companies.

The BBI website last week unveiled its findings, which are based on replies from 10,000 small and medium-sized firms scoring their bank on the transparency of charges, how well it understood their business and how competitive its interest rates were – as well as providing an overall score based on their willingness to recommend their bank to other businesses.

Swedish bank Handelsbanken emerged as one of the most favoured. Among those banks given review scores by ten or more customers, Handelsbanken came top with almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of its customers saying they would recommend it.

Cater Allen, the private banking subsidiary of Santander, ranked second; with Coutts third; relative newcomer Metro Bank fourth; and Co-operative Bank and Santander’s main banking operation joint fifth.

BBI was set up by the British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses with support from the Treasury.

Leighton Samuel, managing director of picture frame maker Reflex, said he had moved to Handelsbanken six months ago.

He said: ‘I find it refreshing to be able to speak to a person – communications are excellent.

‘It’s like going back to how banking was 25 years ago. Decisions are made at local branch level and that is where they are a step ahead of most other banks.’