An email arrived in my inbox a few days ago, telling me that my favourite website company had hit the ground running with all guns blazing in the first week back to work in January. I had Flu! I went down with something before New Year and 2 weeks later, I am eventually back in the office. Although I was “off sick” I was working from home between bouts of feeling like I just wanted to go back to bed and the coughing.
Never mind, that is now all past, as is the distant memory of Christmas parties, mince pies and cake. I’ll be working on the extra weight I put on for a while!
Now, down to the business of 2025.
There is all the usual rubbish but that is just normal. More about that in a moment. 2025 is a new year with 300+ days in which to make a difference. So, on this day in 2026, where will you be? What will your business look like? How many staff will you employ? What was your profit for 2025? And of course, there will be the inevitable question of what opportunities you take and which ones you miss.
It’s a new year, with the often spoken about a blank sheet of paper on which to write our own destiny. I know these are fine words and they are the same words I probably wrote this time last year. At the end of the day, the words count for nothing. It will be the decisions you take, the opportunities you choose to grasp, and the problems you weather that will make the difference. Alternatively, you can choose to tick along as you are, wishing for something different.
I’ll ask you in January 2026 what you achieved in 2025!
Anyway, I had an interesting interaction with Lloyds Bank (masquerading as Bank of Scotland) last week. We speak to people the whole time about getting bank accounts opened. This is our story.
We have been helping a fledgling business now for a number of years. We wanted to move them to a larger bank with more services. We bank with the Bank of Scotland and are happy with their online services so that seemed the obvious place.
It’s been 5 months since we started the process and 3 months since we filled out the online application form because that was what we were told we had to do. Last week I got a phone call to say we had to start the application process all over again and by the way, it had to be a telephone application.
I’ll not bore you with the details but sufficed to say we have already been through the mill with this application.
Having firmly but politely told the caller we would go to another bank rather than apply all over again, I spoke to a complaints manager, who quickly investigated the matter and upheld our complaint. We were paid £40 that day.
When she told me we could get £40 in compensation, I said that the amount of compensation was laughable. She just said we did not need to accept it. I still wonder what planet they are on, but we are dealing with Lloyds staff somewhere down in Englandshire. I have largely given up on ever seeing a new account opened but will be interested to see just how long it takes to open a business account for this fledgling company.
If you work for a bank that actually wants new business and has good internet services, feel free to get in touch.
In a period when growth seems to be the order of the day, opening bank accounts and all that sort of initial admin should be quick and painless. Instead, it is tied up with red tape and regulation, stifling enterprise.
We used to have a regular feature called “The Sales Prevention Department” where we recounted stories of businesses seeming to try to drive away new business. Maybe we should bring it back. Our experience with Lloyds seems to be a classic example.
Never mind, these things are sent to try us, and our fledgling company is progressing anyway. They have just applied for a £500K grant to develop an electricity generation system for a location in Southern Africa.
Onwards and upwards in spite of the UK banking system.
Alan E Long
The Long Partnership
07770 738770
