The Bank of England has fined banking dynasty scion Jay Hambro for his conduct during a stint as director of the Wyelands Bank, the Sanjeev Gupta-owned lender that ignominiously collapsed in 2020.
The BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) issued Hambro – a prominent City figure – with a £72,000 penalty on Wendesday, saying that his conduct “fell below the standards expected of a person in his position” while he was board member of Wyelands.
Hambro, who was the GFG Alliance’s chief investment officer between 2017 and 2021 and represented the shareholders in his role in Wyleands’ board, has accepted the fine and his failings, the PRA said in a statement.
Hambro’s fine is the latest in a growing list of formal sanctions issued by the PRA in the fallout from Wyelands’ collapse, and the second verdict in as many weeks.
PwC was handed a £2.9m for “serious failings” in its role as auditor of the lender in March.
And last year, the watchdog censured Wyelands’ former chief executive Iain Hunter for his role in the bank’s failure, saying that he undermined “trust in financial institutions and the wider financial system” in a statement announcing a £118,000 fine.
Sam Woods, the chief executive of the PRA, said that Hambro’s actions had “threatened the safety and soundness of Wyelands Bank”.
Wyelands was an integral part of Gupta’s conglomerate GFG until it was wound down in 2020. At its peak, the lender had amassed more than £700m in deposits from savers, and it issued loans to small and medium-sized enterprises to “help them realise their potential”.
But in March 2021 it was ordered to return customers’ deposits, as regulators became concerned about its liquidity and general financial health.
Responding to the ruling, Hambro said: ““I had never been the director of a PRA-regulated entity prior to my appointment and now accept that I should have showed a greater level of assiduousness as a non-executive director.”