(no MSG) Chinese restaurant need to
invest in swap derivatives?
I don't know either, and neither does he.
He was just stupid enough to trust his
banker when he went to borrow money
to get the Greasy Spoon off the ground,
so to speak.
This is one dish where I'd just like to eat
the platter, as well.
Checkitout: Telegraph
Restaurant
boss starts pay revolt on bank swaps
One
of London’s top restaurateurs has stopped paying Royal Bank of Scotland
thousands of pounds a month to service a complex derivative contract he says
the lender mis-sold him.
Hakkasan
Sami
Wasif said he has already missed one payment of nearly £4,000 on an interest
rate swap and would not be making any further payments to RBS as a matter of
“principle”.
By
Harry Wilson
7:00AM
GMT 25 Nov 2012
Sami
Wasif, the co-founder of Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Hakkasan, said he
has already missed one payment of nearly £4,000 on an interest rate swap and
would not be making any further payments to RBS as a matter of “principle”.
“I
feel very strongly about this. I trusted the bank to charge me fairly and I
don’t know what I’m paying for,” said Mr Wasif, who says he has already paid
nearly £200,000 to RBS for an interest rate hedge he claims he never wanted.
Mr
Wasif wrote to RBS last month to tell them he was no longer prepared to pay for
the swap, but said he has yet to receive a reply from the lender despite
sending a follow-up email to explain the action he was taking.
A
spokesman for RBS said: “Customers are reminded of their contractual
obligations with the bank. If any customer has concerns over payments they
should talk to us and we will deal with them on a case by case basis.”
Barclays
and HBSC have begun allowing some small-business customers to suspend their
swap payments ahead of their cases being reviewed as part of an independent
compensation scheme for victims of mis-sold interest rate derivatives.
HMRC 'disappointing' over swap mis-selling
21 Nov 2012
Miliband urges faster action on missold
swaps
20 Oct 2012
Banks told to compensate swap victims
25 Oct 2012
RBS
has already rejected a complaint by Mr Wasif and said that it did not believe
he could take his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The bank has yet to
confirm whether he will be eligible to take part in the independent
compensation scheme.
Mr
Wasif said he hoped other businesses in his position would follow his lead and
also stop paying for their swaps.
“A
lot of people have the same problem as me. I have no problem paying the fixed
rate [loan interest]. I don’t want to default on my payments,” he said.
The Financial Services Authority estimates more
than 40,000 small businesses were sold interest rate swaps by their lenders
in the past decade. They acted after an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph
revealed the problem.
A
series of pilot reviews is currently being undertaken by the regulator ahead of
the full launch of the compensation scheme early in the new year.
RBS,
along with Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC, is among 11 banks that
agreed to take part in the scheme. It has already set aside £50m to compensate
customers mis-sold swaps.
Industry
observers have become concerned about the potential cost of the scandal and a
Cabinet minister is understood to have warned colleagues privately that the
compensation bill has the potential to bring down a major British lender.
Last
week, Ed Miliband met FSA officials to discuss swap mis-selling. The visit
followed a pledge by the Labour leader last month to do more to highlight the
issue.
More
than 50 MPs have joined an all-party parliamentary group on swap mis-selling
led by Conservative MP Guto Bebb. The group last week wrote to HMRC to make
clear its disappointment at the harsh line being taken towards businesses that
are having problems meeting their tax obligations due to the cost of servicing
an interest
