SME Alliance at the FT Conference on Banking Standards.

Dear all,

We are happy to announce the Chairman of SME Alliance, Nick Gould, will be speaking at the FT Conference On Banking Standards on 27th April at the Hilton Tower Bridge Hotel. Other speakers include Ross McEwan, CEO of RBS and Tracey McDermott, former CEO of the FCA.

This is an excellent example of breaking down silos and we are grateful to Patrick Jenkins, Financial Editor of the Financial Times, who is Chairing this event, for inviting us to take part. There are only 26 speakers and it is a sign of the positive progress we have made since 2014 that we can have a voice at this event. Especially as we are quite well known for not towing the establishment line!

While we know many of our members have serious and unresolved issues with both Banks and Regulators, we would be grateful if any tweets about this event are positive. If we can’t communicate and broadcast our message, we won’t get it across. Therefore, in the same way we really value our involvement in the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime, we really value taking part in this event.

Does this mean we are watering down our message? No it doesn’t. We know that legacy issues are still causing our members huge problems. But we want to move forward and there is no better way than to present our views in a reasoned and measured way to the people at the top of the financial sector because in our view, many of them simply don’t know our side of the story.

No one in SME Alliance is better placed to speak at this forum than our Chairman. He is a corporate lawyer, he has no personal issues with banks and over the last two and a half years, he has become fully aware of the problems so many SMEs continue to deal with.

Unfortunately, the cost of attending this event is prohibitive to most of our members (it’s over £900) but we will put Nick’s speech on our website.

Please help us promote this opportunity. We want as many people as possible to attend Nick’s speech. Communication is the key to change and we want to support Nick who will be speaking on behalf of us all.
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https://live.ft.com/Events/2017/FT-Banking-Standards-Conference