This thread popped up in "Similar Threads" to one I am on in FWR and it looks like it needs an update. Most (all?) of the allegations about Farage earlier in this thread appear to have been refuted by the documents supplied by Coutts in response to Farage's Subject Access Request.
I am no fan of Farage but Coutts has obviously made a big mistake going for him - and then lying about the reasons that they closed his account. He has kicked up a right stink and that will help people who do not have his public profile.
It used to be a legal right for everyone in the UK to have a Bank Account and that was achieved through the Post Office Bank. There is even more need for that right to be reinstated in Legislation now, when so few people are paid in cash and so many payments are required to be cashless.
Pop these links into one of the usual Archive sites:
Nigel Farage’s Coutts account closed as bank felt he did not ‘align with their values’
Documents obtained by ex-Ukip leader show reputational risk committee ‘exited’ him after considering his views on issues such as Brexit
Extracts
"Earlier this month, the BBC and the Financial Times reported claims that the reason Mr Farage’s accounts were closed was that they fell below the financial threshold required by the bank. The BBC quoted sources “familiar with” the Coutts decision.
Yet in the 40 pages of documents released to Mr Farage after he made a subject access request to Coutts, the bank repeatedly says he “meets the EC [economic contribution] criteria for commercial retention”."
"Minutes of a meeting of Coutts’ wealth reputational risk committee held on Nov 17 2022 state: “The committee did not think continuing to bank NF was compatible with Coutts given his publicly-stated views that were at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation.
“This was not a political decision but one centred around inclusivity and purpose.”
Mr Farage has said Coutts told him he was not being treated as a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) – a legal term for customers who are deemed risky for political reasons – but the dossier specifically states that he is one.
He writes: “Whoever at Coutts thought it clever to feed friendly media outlets outright lies about me sorely misjudged the situation.”
The document contains 39 mentions of Mr Trump, and Mr Farage says: “The fact that I support Donald Trump is part of this charge sheet.”
"It says he is seen as “xenophobic and racist”, repeats claims that he was a “fascist” in his schooldays, and says he said things in the past that are “distasteful and appear increasingly out of touch with wider society”.
Mr Farage writes that the dossier “reads rather like a pre-trial brief drawn up by the prosecution in a case against a career criminal. Monthly press checks were made on me. My social media accounts were monitored. Anything considered ‘problematic’ was recorded. I was being watched”.
"Mr Farage now says he cannot get an account with any other bank, having been turned down by 10 banks since Coutts withdrew its services. Members of his family have also been refused accounts by other banks, and one family member was told their account was being closed."
Speaking on Mr Farage’s GB News show, Lord Lamont, a former chancellor, said: “I was appalled when I looked at the documents.
“It seems to me a right to have a bank account is a fundamental right... but it appears that the executives of the bank were going through your views and saying they were not compatible with their values. That is not the function of a bank. It’s extraordinary that a bank should set itself up as some judge of political correctness.”
Some senior Tory MPs have called for a change in the law on PEPs to prevent abuse of the system. Under UK financial law, gatekeepers of the banking system must perform enhanced checks on people classed as PEPs, their families and close associates.
The Treasury has confirmed that it is reviewing whether banks are blacklisting customers with controversial political views. Under the new Financial Services and Markets Act, the Financial Conduct Authority will look at how banks deal with PEPs in a review to take place within the next year.
A spokesman for the Treasury said: “It would be of serious concern if financial services were being denied to anyone exercising their right to lawful free speech.
“We will soon set out plans to crack down on this practice by toughening the rules around account closures, protecting freedom of expression. In the meantime, people can complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service which has the power to direct a bank to reopen an account.”
Continues at:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/18/nigel-farage-coutts-bank-account-closed-align-with-values/
The real reason Coutts closed my accounts – and it has nothing to do with my finances
I have seen the Stasi-style surveillance report used to justify the bank’s extraordinary action – it is, frankly, shocking"
Extracts
"My fate was sealed at a meeting of the bank’s wealth reputational risk committee on Nov 17, 2022.
Executives agreed that, once my mortgage expired, I was to be “de-banked”. I know this because, via a subject access request, I have seen the 36-page Stasi-style surveillance report used at that meeting to justify this extraordinary action. This report is, frankly, shocking.
The first thing to say is that Coutts’s decision to cancel me had nothing to do with my finances. Contrary to the damaging briefings made to the BBC and the FT this month about my holdings falling below the bank’s threshold, the report states several times that my “economic contribution” is sound and my funds are “sufficient to retain on a commercial basis”.
It even acknowledges that I am a positive net financial contributor to the bank. Whoever at Coutts thought it clever to feed friendly media outlets outright lies about me sorely misjudged the situation."
"This report is proof that any Coutts customer who holds even vaguely conservative views should be treated with disdain. My friendship with the family of Novak Djokovic, who stood firm over his belief that he should have the freedom to choose whether to receive the Covid vaccine, is mentioned on the charge sheet.
So is my retweeting of a Ricky Gervais gag and my belief in leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. What do these things have to do with my bank account?"
Vladimir Putin’s Russia was the obvious choice for their smear campaign. Indeed, the Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant is mentioned twice for his false allegation – made in the Commons chamber last year but never repeated outside it – that I received £548,573 in one calendar year “from the Russian state”.
Yet Coutts’s report notes (presumably through gritted teeth) that it found no evidence of my having any links to Russia. And it checked thoroughly."
"The most extraordinary comments of all are the areas of the report talking about me “not aligning with [Coutts’s] views” and suggesting I must be barred because I do not support the diversity, policies and “purpose” of Coutts, as though Britain is a political regime and I am a dissident.
What should any of us make of this word “purpose”? Surely the purpose of a commercial organisation is to act with integrity and to make a profit for shareholders – in the case of Coutts, by the way, that means all of us. For its biggest shareholder is the state, which retains a 38.6 per cent stake in this bank and the wider RBS group, including NatWest."
"Over the last few years, thousands of all banks’ customers have seen their applications to open accounts refused, or existing accounts closed.
This happens for various reasons. Perhaps a business takes too much cash, as the bank sees it. The nature of being deemed a politically exposed person or a member of their extended family is another possibility. But existing rules mean the banks never have to explain a “de-banking”.
I’m probably the first public figure to challenge the behaviour of our banking industry in this way. It is clear Coutts thought it could spin its way out of my “de-banking” and perhaps even emerge with its image enhanced. Not this time."
"This story is not just about me. You could be next. Refinitiv, which monitors creditworthiness, can examine social media posts made by any of us on Facebook or elsewhere. If this situation is left unchecked, we will sleepwalk towards a China-style social credit system in which only those with the “correct” views are allowed to fully participate in society."
Continues at:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/18/nigel-farage-coutts-uk-bank-accounts/