“Prejudiced and nasty” Nigel Farage…

[MangetoutsaysGetOutMan]

… doesn’t understand irony.

The way I read it was that there was no upside to Coutts in continuing to bank NF after he stopped meeting their commercial criteria so they ditched him.

For me this was an 'everyone sucks here' but breaking customer confidentiality for any purpose is rightly a sacking offence.

Sam Baker here, who I had previously thought was quite intelligent:

He’s not even satisfied now he’s destroyed the career of a woman Who was exceptionally good at her job

twitter.com/SamBaker/status/1684144191541059584?s=20

@AnSolas another one really appreciating your posts thank you

If she'd been exceptionally good at her job, none of this would have happened.

JassyRadlett

The way I read it was that there was no upside to Coutts in continuing to bank NF after he stopped meeting their commercial criteria so they ditched him.

Yes there was an upside, their business is to make money and he was a paying customer.

As already pointed out by an other poster(s) there was a distinction between new customers and existing customers.
Because it is much easier to keep a break-even income flow than it is to gain a new income stream (1 in your hand v 2 in a bush)

If the bank were at client capacity and has a richer alternative replacement client who they were going to have to reject the wealth management team could have an economic argument.

If the argument was that he was costing the bank money then they have an Is this client a "loss leader" discussion.

The staff decided to enter the really expensive market of Ethical Investments.
Staff are now getting an education on some of the reasons why it is expensive.

People have been asking who spilled the beans about the source. I think it was Rose herself, the scandal being of full flow would likely to have seen her drawn into a number of situations where she'd have been asked about the source, for example a Select Committee, the High Court, etc, and either she'd have had to fess up then or lie, having a reasonable belief that if she lied and the truth later came out, that would have been catastrophic for her, far worse than the current outcome. It was a skin-saving move on her part and the first sign of anyone showing any sound judgement about this scandal at either Coutts or NatWest.

Ok, 'negligible financial upside once his mortgage term was up' if that makes you feel better. 😂

Frankly, the nastiest, most intolerant, hate-filled people I know are all left-wing. I find moderate conservatives far more tolerant, open-minded, and willing to change their mind. The left now have such a stranglehold that they've labelled everyone outside their bubble 'right-wing', or even 'fascist'. I voted to stay in the EU (though I was only 60-40 in favour), but I don't consider Nigel Farage a right-wing monster. He makes a perfectly rational case for leaving the European Union. You can also make a good case for controlling your own borders, wanting laws made in your own country, and distrusting transnational bureaucracies.

Dame Rose was clearly shit at her job - I think wilfully briefing a journalist with fake facts kind of precludes you from having the integrity to be a ceo of a bank. God riddance.

Why are these people so bad at accountability?

They make mistakes and their defenders are bad at it too

I know it may not feel like it sometimes (often?) but banks are subject to FCA principles and one of those is to pay due regard to the interests of your customers and treat them fairly.
it’s not a jewellery or yacht business coutts are running. They do need to try and not be complete wankers to their customers.

He’s not even satisfied now he’s destroyed the career of a woman Who was exceptionally good at her job

That's a seriously shit take. Presumably client confidentiality is treated as a high priority and a basic element of professional competence in the banking sector.

She did this to herself unless NF instructed her to lie about his bank account to a BBC journalist.

JassyRadlett
Ok, 'negligible financial upside once his mortgage term was up' if that makes you feel better. 😂

I perfer the expression funding partnership for staff bonus payments 🤷

As I said waaaaaay upthread part of the problem with the 'they're a private company they can do what they like' argument is that it's a regulated sector. Personally I think there should be a universal service obligation on banks in a similar way to domestic energy suppliers, given the increasing centrality of access to banking in everyday life.

But as it is, banks have more leeway than traditional utilities in balancing commercial interests with customer service and fair treatment standards under their regulatory duties.

Like I said, my view was firmly ESH from the outset - Coutts hadn't behaved particularly well or transparently, Farage had appeared not to be totally honest and hadn't had a good PR hit in a while. But the level of data breach from a chief executive tipped it way over.

Another genius take 🙄 with over 4,000 likes

The far right has now bullied a successful female CEO out of her job. They’ll come for anybody identified as “woke” by Farage or his minions now. A shameful episode exemplifying the corruption & hate of this vile Tory Govt. Hang your head in shame Sunak

https://twitter.com/gullssinceaboy/status/1684009472673587201

I wouldn’t give these people exposure

They sound very dim. No one forced the CEO to have a smug laugh at a dinner and forget her professional integrity.

It’s all on the people that did that.

The arrogance, self righteousness and contempt for the public is astounding.

Rose meeting with a journalist in public to breach confidentiality and conspire against a customer. This shows a level of brass neck and belief that these people are invincible.

NatWest board didn’t think to consult the majority shareholder before declaring that their CEO had made a grave error but they wanted to keep her in post. They just believed that the small people who bailed them out when they previously messed up don’t matter.

The moral superior progressives simply treat anyone with an opposing view and the majority with absolute disgust. Total disdain. This, ladies and gentleman, is what you pay your taxes for.

Farage has always been a marmite character.
But, whatever his motivation, this time he has delivered a great service to democracy and free speech in our country by;

a) highlighting banks are closing accounts based on customers' political and other beliefs

b) mobilising the government to act on this - albeit too late and possibly too little

c) bringing Nat West practices into the public domain and - given the appalling PR it has brought on itself - encouraging other banks more focused on maximising profits to review their own account closure processes

Anyone who finds this a bad thing should really think hard about whether they want to live in a democracy with freedom of speech as it's cornerstone.

Totally agree @Hurrydash

The Information Commissioner has stepped in. He has suggested that banks may be breaking the law (the DPA) by keeping excessive data, in files, on customers.

I imagine that applies to a lot of banks, businesses and employers who have had the utterly shit EDI ‘training’ on offer from some of those unregulated organisations we have come to know and sue.

I hope Maya Forstater’s Sex Matters has a good look at this as it may be a further way for women being targeted by EDI-ed employers to seek redress.

This is great.

AutumnCrow
The Information Commissioner has stepped in. He has suggested that banks may be breaking the law (the DPA) by keeping excessive data, in files, on customers.

He is very correct when it comes to the content of the report. An employee collected the political opinions of a client. That is classed in rhe same data management 'pot' as medical data.

Which for a PEP could be justifiable AML eg it could allow the bank to understand the expected political behaviour ( a large deposit from Company A matched with a headline of Company A gaining advantage justifies a look at voting patterns).

NW should have a team who''s job it was to run simulation models (the compliance department). With account "Type_NF" part of the onboarding process should be to the take the Rule Book for AML (we want all possible data for the best pattern recognition system) and stress test it against Data Protectection (we are only allowed the minimum needed to make the test viable) to make sure the system only collects relevant data for the lawful obligation (purpose) of AML.
Once collected the data can not be used for a different reason without by permission or lawful exception. So the cross-check is the bank want data point Z (expensive to collect and store), do we have a lawful reason to collect it and if collected what other benefits can the bank gain by having permission (a lawful reason) to use it.
The onboarding would include how the contract ends and part of the exit process should take the Rule Book for managing Reputation Risk (fair treatment of a client - discrimination for being a PEP) needed the same type of stress testing, the model should have run the we dont like your politics option, it should give the result that most posters here understood immediatly without knowing the law existed or having received training.

For the slow note takers in the back row.
If the bank discover they cant apply a test to a PEP they cant apply it to you.

Ethics and morality need to be taught on school clearly.

It's a tricky subject and has many nuances.
We used to do lots of ethical moral debates in re we didn't cover the bible.
I used to enjoy them and they made you think.

It's worrying that so many people are happy to put aside morality when they don't like someone.

Or are prepared to sweep away our democracy etc.

100% agree with this.

Peter Flavel, CEO of Coutts, has now resigned!

Coutts Bank boss quits over Farage account row - BBC News