HSBC, TSB and Nationwide have broken the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) retail banking rules.

Under part 5 of the Retail Banking Order, banks are required to send payment transaction histories to any business current account (BCA) customer that closes their account with a turnover of less than £6.5 million.

The measure is designed to make switching between BCAs easier for SMEs, with some smaller businesses concerned that by moving to a new current account provider they could lose access to their banking history, which is often required by lenders when offering credit.

The Order addresses this by requiring banks and building societies to provide each customer whose BCA has been closed with a full payment transaction history.

However, HSBC failed to send an estimated 12,200 payment transaction histories to former BCA holders between when part 5 of the Retail Banking Order came into effect in February 2018 and December 2022.

The regulator said that it was “unacceptable” that a large, regulated entity such as HSBC “manifestly failed to implement an effective process” to make sure BCA customers that had closed their accounts would be provided with their payment transaction history.

“This failure led to breaches which have been ongoing since the Order came into force, and HSBC’s processes, systems and staff were not capable of detecting and reporting these breaches until December 2022,” added Colin Garland, CMA director of remedies, business and financial analysis, in a letter to the bank. “In addition, the inability for HSBC to determine the scale of these breaches due to the inadequacy of its systems and processes is a further concern.”

The regulator also said that TSB failed to send over 105,000 payment transaction histories to former BCA and personal account customers between April 2022 and 20 March this year, while Nationwide failed to provide these to around 51,000 former personal current account holders during the period between when the rule was enforced and May this year.

The competition watchdog said that because all three banks have taken steps to end the breaches and prevent a recurrence, it will take no further action.

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