Debanking Complaints Surge in Wake of Nigel Farage’s NatWest Scandal
Complaints about bank account closures have jumped in the wake of the Nigel Farage debanking scandal, new figures show. The Telegraph has more.
The Financial Ombudsman opened 1,613 new cases related to all bank account closures in the six months to the end of September, new figures show, equivalent to around 268 cases each month.
This compares with 2,708 cases across the whole of 2022-23 – a rate of just over 225 a month – and suggests complaints are on track to climb by a fifth to around 3,200 this financial year if the current trend continues.
The data has been revealed in a letter to the Treasury Select Committee (TSC) published on Wednesday and also show that an increasing number of complaints are being upheld by the regulator amid greater public scrutiny.
It came as the committee warned that high street lenders have been shutting accounts of small and medium-sized businesses without reason.
The committee is scrutinising the issue in the wake of a scandal over the treatment of former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage by private bank Coutts, a division of NatWest.
Mr. Farage was informed his account would be closed this summer after staff internally decided his views did not “align” with the bank’s own values “as an inclusive organisation”.
The revelations of judgements made about Mr. Farage have sparked fears about widespread illegitimate account closures.
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This could be easily solved by getting rid of protected characteristics in favour of a general rule that anybody offering goods or services to the general public, ie, not just to members of some club, in exchange for money must accept anyone as customer who’s (legally) capable of paying and willing to behave himself decently while engaged in the transaction. In theory, that’s an end supposed to be achieved implicitly by economic competition. But there are many businesses which aren’t really operating in competitive markets. To use a contrived example, a railway company run by muslims shouldn’t be allowed to reject jews as customers because of non-alignment with our core values.
NF exposed the scandal but I bet nothing will be done to change the banks or protect the customer.
We already have two tier systems where honest folk have to obey the rules and another tier who can money launder and ignore the rules and get away with it.
NF will campaign on this at the GE and will find a lot of support.
You don’t de-bank anyone. That is a challenge on their right to exist and you don’t really want to be going to war on your own people like that. Has consequences you dig.
Nowhere has there been a forensic examination of Ms Rose-Slade’s actions – the internal so called independent review so far and the FCA’s are brush offs. At the risk of being accused of being a stuck record, she DID breach client confidentliality and she admitted as such by confirming the BBC’s reporter check of the conversation the following day. She should NEVER have had ANY access to a banking client’s personal data; the extent of the monitoring and recording of NF’s internet, business and GB News “outputs” is nothing to do with anti-money laundering or the overarching “know your client” FCA regulations. The absence of any examination of her FCA regulated role, or prior “controlled functions” is disturbing. She, and NatWest had to comply with the Senior Manager regulations – much much more onerous and would have had to take and pass annual SMR checks – no exemptions. Her authorisation to work in a FCA regulated business devolved to NatWest some years ago; that would not have been a trivial exercise. As a banking graduate trainee from 1992 it is inconceivable that she did not take professional banking exams – if so she would have had to act, under whatever… Read more »