How many banks have voluntarily given up their banking licences over the (a) past 5 years and (b) since January 2016?

Date:  14 March 2017

Disclosure:

For the purposes of authorisation, a bank is a firm with permission to carry on the regulated activity of accepting deposits and is a credit institution but is not a credit union, friendly society or a building society or is an EEA (European Economic Area) bank.  Therefore, there is no ‘banking licence’ as such.  From 1 April 2013, firms were required to be authorised to carry on the regulated activity of accepting deposits by the Prudential Regulation Authority (‘PRA’).  Applications are considered by both the PRA and the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA ‘) with the PRA as the lead regulator and responsible for leading on the authorisation process.  Prior to 1 April 2013 firms were authorised by the Financial Services Authority.  

We are therefore only able to provide data from 1 April 2013.  The table below shows the number of banks that either accepted deposits and cancelled their authorisation completely or have cancelled their accepting deposits permissions but are still authorised for other permissions.

*   Date the PRA was established
** Date of receipt of your request

You may also be interested in the list of Banks and Building Societies which is published on our website.