Complaint Rating:

As an ordinary citizen with a Lloyds TSB bank account, I have read with concern and anger the decision by you to suspend banking services to UK retailers because they trade with Cuba. You say it is because the US will prosecute any business that trades with Cuba. There are several issues here, all of which show your unwillingness to side with the little guy.

First of all, is this decision by the US legal? Can they arbitrarily decide who it is they can refuse to trade with? On what basis has the US conducted a 50-year blockade of Cuba? What right of blockade do they have? Have you investigated this? If not, why not?

Are you complying for business reasons? If so then you are spineless.

Secondly, what about the rights of British citizens to trade? Are you not interfering with these? Where in the UK Constitution does it say we have to abide by the legal system of a non-EU government? Have you checked to see what the rights of UK citizens are to trade with Cuba? I doubt it.

It seems that Lloyds TSB has to taken the easy and profitable way out, to appease a powerful trading block rather than side with its own citizens. Rather than tell the US that their demands infringe basic freedoms and liberties of Britons, you have kowtowed for business reasons. So be it. As long as we know which side you are on. You are on the side of big business against us, the ordinary man in the street.

Finally, here are two questions I would like answers to, as they concern me personally, a little guy. Am I free to visit Cuba on holiday, or do you have the right to censure that as well? What if I want to send a donation to Cuba for all the good work they are doing in their hospitals, will you refuse to honour that cheque?

Nick Ferriman
Global citizen