Jim McColl, one of Scotland’s richest men, has raised the prospect of launching a new Scottish bank to fund growing businesses.
Mr McColl said he planned to apply for a banking licence in March after pulling together a consortium to support small businesses with loans of up to £5 million.
Speaking to the Scottish Parliament’s Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, Mr McColl also defended Peter Cummings, the former boss of HBOS’s commercial banking division.
Herald View: New bank could be just the boost our economy needs
Dubbed “the man who broke HBOS”, Mr Cummings was banned for life from banking in 2012 and fined £500,000 by the Financial Services Authority for his role in the near-collapse of the bank.
“Peter Cummings and the others got slated for the big challenges they created but underlying that was a lot of support for small Scottish companies,” said Mr McColl. “More support than you’d think a bank like that would give. But they were based in Scotland and so had a bias towards Scottish companies. We don’t have a Scottish bank anymore.
“Royal Bank of Scotland I’ve got to go to London to speak to anyone senior, Bank of Scotland is now Lloyds.”
Mr McColl, the chief executive of investment vehicle Clyde Blowers Capital, said no one was now going the extra mile to support small businesses after Royal Bank of Scotland’s £45 billion government bailout and Bank of Scotland’s acquisition by Lloyds in the wake of the financial crash.
The planned Scottish National Investment Bank could return the required level of support, he said, if implemented the right way. A public consultation was launched on the planned Scottish National Investment Bank in October.
Herald View: New bank could be just the boost our economy needs
The last Scottish bank to launch was Hampden & Co, which was the first new private bank to emerge in the UK for 30 years when it opened in June 2015.
While it has not been revealed how much Mr McColl is looking to raise, he told the committee the £340 million which has been proposed as initial capital for the Scottish National Investment Bank was “not enough by a long shot”.
Mr McColl also suggested that responsibility for export finance, which helps businesses target overseas markets, should be devolved.
“That should be part of the SNIB, because it’s not working right now,” he said.
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