Barclays set to make all business customers change accounts

The move is part of Barclays’ plan to split its low-risk high street lending business from its investment bank.

The move will require one group of customers to change their bank account numbers because they will move to a new legal entity.
Barclays is expected to tell it’s business customers that they will have to go through the process of changing their bank account numbers because it believes that it would be too difficult to force its millions of individual customers to do so.
All big UK banks must submit their final plans to the regulator by Friday on how they intend to restructure their businesses by separating low-risk retail and small business banking from investment banking, the key proposal that came out of Sir John Vickers’s independent commission and was adopted by the government.
Barclays is widely seen as having the toughest job because it has a much larger investment bank than its peers. It must sit outside the ringfence and will need to be funded.

Ringfencing rules come into force in 2019.
Jes Staley, the new chief executive of Barclays, has rejected possible blueprints that were considered internally but would have been controversial with regulators, such as putting the retail bank inside the investment bank so that customer deposits could fund loans to big companies, or transferring a chunk of investment banking loans into the retail operation.
Instead, the former JP Morgan banker is understood to believe that Barclays should suggest a relatively simple structure, with an overall holding company overseeing one entity for investment and commercial banking and another for retail and small business lending. The Barclays boss does not believe that the investment bank will have to rely on retail deposits for funding.
Despite having only a few days left, Barclays has not finalised its ringfencing structure.

However, Mr Staley has revealed some of the plans, telling staff in a memo this week that the investment bank would be significantly shrunk, at a cost of 1,000 jobs. That will include shutting virtually all of its cash equities business in Asia.
Mr Staley is set to give more detail about ringfencing alongside Barclays’ annual results on March 1.

Investors also expect him to outline his vision for the bank, which has suffered from a poor share price performance compared with its peers, with observers questioning whether it has a sustainable future in investment banking while also trying to improve its retail bank