Future of sports club under threat after being locked out of its finances

The long term future of a thriving 134 year old village sports club is under threat after it was locked out of its finances by a major national bank.

The club at Walsham-le-Willows, which has up to 24 youth cricket and football teams and has won a raft of district titles and cups and boasts some of the best facilities in the area, is taking Lloyds Bank to the Financial Ombudsman after only being given £300 compensation.

Generations of children have played cricket and football there through two World Wars, the Great Depression, countless recessions and the Covid pandemic.

Its toughest opponent, however, was not on the pitch, but behind a computer screen.

The East Anglian Daily Times has reported that after more than 70 years banking with Lloyds, the club found itself locked out of its account after the bank’s automated system rejected certified identification from one of its trustees without explanation.

It said that Ian Campbell MBE, its 83-year-old treasurer would have walked into his local branch and spoken to someone who knew the club. 

Instead he found himself trapped in a maze of automated systems, phone calls and silence, unable to find anyone who could explain what had gone wrong.

Now the volunteer-run club is taking Lloyds to the Financial Ombudsman in a case that will test whether Britain’s new de-banking protections go far enough.

The case comes just months after new protections came into force in April requiring banks to give 90 days’ notice and a written reason before closing an account.

But critics say those rules only cover new accounts, potentially leaving millions who banked before April this year without protection.

They say the problem is being driven by the replacement of local branch managers who knew their customers with automated compliance systems that flag accounts without human oversight, leaving no one with the authority to intervene or explain.

It presents people from having no branch to walk into, no human being to call and no explanation of what they have done wrong.

The EADT article said that Mr Campbell drove to a Lloyds branch for answers, only to be told branches could no longer deal with business accounts and direct debits began to bounce. Grant payments dried up. VAT refunds failed to arrive. Online banking access disappeared.

The club lodged a formal complaint. Lloyds upheld it, opened a new account and deposited £300 compensation into it.

Mr Campbell rejected the payment and has now taken the dispute to the Financial Ombudsman.

A Lloyds spokesperson was reported to have said: “To help protect customers and meet our regulatory obligations, we sometimes need to carry out checks to confirm how an account is operated. In this case, while those checks were necessary, the experience wasn’t as easy as it should have been and we are sorry for the distress and disruption this caused.

“We have reviewed what happened, apologised to the club, paid compensation in recognition of the service received, and the account is now open and operating normally.”