Halifax, the bank that says 'No'

THE Halifax Bank's policy of discrimination against small businesses has been made embarrassingly public. A flip chart listing a catalogue of professions which should be refused business was mistakenly left in the foyer of a branch.

Titled 'We don't want', the chart said new business start-ups, businesses that deal with coinage, taxi drivers, window cleaners, market traders and shops and supermarkets would not be welcomed as customers. The chart, used for a staff training session, was visible from outside the closed branch in Manchester's Trafford shopping centre.

Representatives of the snubbed professions claimed they were being treated like 'second class citizens'. A spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses said: 'It is a fairly shoddy approach - an insult. We are a nation of small shopkeepers. We have a quarter of Europe's small traders in this country. It appears as it the Halifax is saying, We don't want your business.

'They are perpetuating the myth that these businesses are not worth trading with. But they could go on to be a major concern. The window cleaner could expand into a major cleaning firm, the taxi driver could set up a sizeable firm. And there is so much diversity with the market trader.'

A shopper who noticed the flipchart said: 'It was a shock to see something as insulting as this.' Dennis Conyon, the chairman of the National Taxi Association, said: 'The suggestion that we are second-class citizens is appalling. What a mistake to make. It has to be explained, unless they want cab drivers to take their business elsewhere. Cab drivers are fine upstanding citizens.'

The Halifax, which was the world's largest building society, became a bank in 1997 and merged with the Bank of Scotland in a £28bn deal last year. The revelations are certain to horrify the Halifax's chief executive James Crosby. A spokesman said: 'It is embarrassing. Hands up, we clearly have made a mistake on this occasion. We therefore apologise to any of our customers or prospective customers who may have been offended.'

Prior to the merger, the Halifax had offered no business services at all, as it was a savings and mortgage company.

'We started rolling out business services to some of our branches and offered them in 100 of 800 branches by the end of last year,' said the spokesman. 'There was an internal training session for colleagues. The basic point was that because we are rolling the business service out we are not in a position to handle business that deals with a lot of cash. That is something we aim to sort out this year. Cab drivers and the others mentioned are certainly not second-class citizens. We are proud to have many as our savings and mortgage customers.'