Bully Banks is een in 2011 opgezette Britse belangenorganisatie van en voor MKB ondernemers om klachten tegen de handelwijze van banken bij de verkoop van rentederivaten te coördineren (www.bully-banks.co.uk). Bully Banks gaat haar activiteiten uitbreiden naar andere Europese landen. In het Verenigd Koninkrijk heeft Bully Banks inmiddels de nodige publieke aandacht, onder andere van parlementsleden en de bankentoezichthouder FSA, weten te trekken voor de problemen in het MKB met renteswaps en andere derivaten.

Sinds kort is Bully Banks ook actief voor ondernemers in Ierland.

Om op Europees niveau aandacht te vragen voor de problematiek wil Bully Banks ook ondernemers uit andere Europese landen betrekken bij haar campagne. Aangezien rentederivaten en de door de banken gehanteerde verkoopstrategie in de diverse landen niet wezenlijk verschillen, zo lijkt het, kan een sterke internationale lobbygroep veel voordelen bieden.

Hieronder volgt de tekst van een e-mail van Jeremy Roe, de initiatiefnemer van Bully Banks en eigenaar van een bed and breakfast. Jeremy geeft een beknopt overzicht van de activiteiten van Bully Banks tot nu toe en roept Nederlandse gedupeerde MKB-ondernemers op om zich bij Bully Banks aan te sluiten.

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Rik,

Following our conversation on Saturday, I confirm that Bully-Banks is a campaign group with a membership today of over 1,150 small businesses (ie. over 3,000 business men and women) each of which has been mis-sold an Interest Rate Swap Agreement.

Our website is www.bully-banks.co.uk and is a sensible first stop to learn what we have done and what we are doing.

Our brief history is as follows:

December 2011 – Website set up 
February through June 2012 – Major press coverage in the UK (see the “News” section on the website) 
February through June 2012 – Lobbying of MPs in Parliament. 
April 2012 – Financial Services Authority begin investigation into the mis-sale of IRSAs in response to press and parliamentary pressure. 
May 2012 – Debate in the House of Commons on topic of Mis-selling of IRSAs 
29th June 2012 – Financial Services Authority announcement that they had found significant mis-selling of IRSAs to small businesses. Banks admit to selling 40,000 IRSAs. 
October 2012 – All Party Political Group on the mis-selling of IRSAs set up in Westminster Parliament. Over 73 MPs are currently members. 12 Government Ministers support the APPG. 
31st January 2013 – Banks found that over 90% of 173 pilot cases investigated by them had resulted in a finding of mis-selling. Review Process agreed. 
March 2013 – Barclays / HSBC / RBS / Lloyds have begun a process of reviewing all sale of IRSAs with a value below £10 million. Seven other banks to follow suit. 

Over the period October 2012 to March 2013 the majority of our membership have had payments under their IRSAs suspended. 
Campaign objectives extended to include the mis-sale of embedded swaps and the mis-conduct of the banks in connection with the valuation of property held as security. 
Over the period since March 2012 to Febuary 2013 we have held 11 Conferences across the UK and Ireland – over 1400 business men and women have attended these Conferences. 
We have members in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and now the Republic of Southern Ireland. 

The members in Southern Ireland are anxious for us to raise the issue in Brussels and for this reason we would welcome the involvement of business men and women from other European Countries.

May I ask you to ask let your clients who have been mis-sold an IRSA to know about Bully-Banks. If they would like to phone me on (44) 1237 441 210 and talk to me about our plans that would be a very useful first step.

Kindest regards,

Jeremy