UK banks to be given two weeks to explain closing of customer accounts

The FCA will also force lenders to reveal how many complaints they have fielded from barred customers. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

The City regulator will give the UK’s largest banks two weeks to explain why they have been shutting customer accounts, after a scandal linked to the threatened closure of Nigel Farage’s bank accounts.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will write to more than 20 of the UK’s largest lenders on Wednesday asking them to confirm how many customer accounts have recently been closed, suspended or denied, and explain the reasons why those services have been blocked.