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By Lawrence White and Andrew MacAskill
LONDON, June 6 (Reuters) - British banks are prepping staffto deal with a barrage of questions from retail and smallbusiness customers after the country's June 23 vote on whetherto stay in or leave the European Union.
HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, RBS and Nationwide have all briefed staff on howto respond to customer queries on both outcomes of the vote,with foreign exchange risks expected to be the biggest concern,according to sources at the banks.
The banks have circulated question and answer scenarios tostaff with suggestions on how to respond to specific questions,particularly if a vote to leave triggers a sharp fall in thepound.
Call centre staff at HSBC's customer contact centres acrossBritain have been given scripts detailing responses to likelycustomer questions. Building society Nationwide said it had alsobeen advising its teams how to respond.
"Our employees have been briefed and if our members haveconcerns or questions in relation to this matter we will addressthose with them," a spokesman for Nationwide said.
The other banks declined to comment in detail on theirplans.
One bank, which asked not to be identified, said its own Q&Adocument included whether a 'leave' vote would make a customer'smortgage more expensive; whether it might affect a studentstudying in Europe; and whether investments would be impacted.
Some small businesses may be among those most in need ofhelp because not that many have taken out insurance against asharp move in the pound following the referendum.
Customer questions about taking out insurance on the valueof the pound have increased four-fold in the last 6-8 weeks,according to Abhishek Sachdev, managing director of Vedantawhich advises small businesses on hedging risk.
Sachdev said 10-day volatility in the sterling/euro hadincreased from 6 percent to 14 percent in the last two weeks,showing the impact of recent opinion polls which havehighlighted that the result may be too close to call.
"This kind of volatility is making our message thatcompanies need to consider how they hedge against such riskeasier to understand, because customers are scared," Sachdevsaid.
Four-fifths of Britain's major companies have hedged againstthe risk that a vote to leave the European Union would knockmore than 10 percent off the value of sterling, a poll of almost800 of the top 1,000 showed last month.
But only 22 percent of smaller businesses said they hadhedged, the survey showed.
The close nature of polls attempting to predict the outcomehas made it difficult for smaller companies to decide whetherthey need to 'hedge' or insure against such currency risks,bankers said.
Polls on Monday showed the campaign for Britain to leave theEuropean Union has taken a 4-5 percentage point lead, sendingsterling towards three-week lows against the U.S. dollar.
"For a small business owner it's hard to know whether tohedge, you either did the deal of a lifetime or destroyed a lotof value come June 24," a senior banker at one of Britain's bigfour banks said. (Reporting By Lawrence White and Andrew MacAskill. Editing byJane Merriman)
