There are red faces galore this morning at the Halifax, after the UK's largest mortgage lender dropped a real clanger, which has rapidly grown into a major PR disaster after it was picked up by the Sun Newspaper.

The red top revealed this morning that the Halifax had accidentally left a training flip chart outside a branch at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that the said sign featured a list of different customer groups that the bank feels are undesirable as customers.

The flip chart reads:

"We don't want:

• New business start-ups
• Businesses that deal with coinage
• Taxi drivers
• Window cleaners
• Market traders
• Shops and Supermarkets"

While the bank may feel that it is justified in trying to cherry pick only those customers whose accounts are simplest and therefore cheapest to manage, the revelations have obviously angered those groups who fall under the unwanted tag.

Dennis Conyon, chairman of the National Taxi Association, said: "What a mistake to make. It has to be explained unless they want cabbies to take their business elsewhere."

A spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses said: "It's a fairly shoddy approach, an insult. We are a nation of small shopkeepers. We have a quarter of Europe's small traders in this country. It appears as if the Halifax is saying, 'We don't want your business'. They are perpetrating the myth that these businesses are not worth trading with. But they could go on to be a major concern. The window cleaner could expand into a major cleaning firm, the taxi driver could set up a sizeable firm. And there is so much diversity with the market trader."

Halifax spokesman Barry Gardner explained: "We are sorry for any embarrassment, particularly to people in the occupations listed. These are occupations that rely heavily on cash-carrying services and we can't provide for this at all Halifax branches.For companies depositing large amounts of cash daily, we wouldn't be able to meet their needs. But we are working on it."