Wyelands Bank rebuked by Bank of England for regulatory failings
The Bank of England has issued a public reprimand against the Greensill-linked Wyelands Bank after discovering “wide-ranging significant regulatory failings” at the lender, which is owned by Sanjeev Gupta, boss of the troubled Liberty Steel.
Wyelands, which was Greensill Capital’s biggest client before the scandal-hit firm collapsed in early 2021, was found to have breached a series of rules including falling short on governance and risk controls, reporting its capital position incorrectly and failing to retain messages sent on WhatsApp between 2016 and 2020.
The central bank’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), said it would have fined Wyelands Bank £8.5m had it not already been in the process of winding down. “The PRA accepted that [Wyelands] has very limited financial resources,” the regulator said.
The lender, which Gupta renamed after his country house and estate near Chepstow in south Wales, also became the first censured by the central bank for breaking rules limiting exposure to a single party, having agreed to too many loans and complex financial agreements with companies linked to its owner, Gupta Family Group Alliance (CFG).
The central bank’s investigation confirmed Wyelands had entered several complex financial agreements on recommendation of GFG and failed to follow through on plans to diversify its business away from GFG and associated businesses.
It then failed to notify regulators when business with clients associated with GFG grew beyond regulatory limits. “In practice, Wyelands’ business was almost entirely reliant on GFG and entities originally introduced by GFG,” the central bank said.
Wyelands was ordered to cap the loans offered to GFG-affiliated companies in September 2019, amid
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