Outgoing NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose revealed her untrustworthiness as a banker of any seniority in being willing to discuss Nigel Farage’s bank accounts with Coutts with a journalist. Why was she even sitting next to the BBC’s Simon Jack at a charity dinner, given the topicality of the account cancellations and the risk of how it might appear? She could hardly have expected not to be asked about the matter.
When she belatedly admitted she was the source for Jack’s story, published by the BBC, stating she believed the closures were purely on the grounds of his having insufficient funds in both accounts, she also wrote that she was unaware of the Coutts Wealth Reputational Risk Committee report into him. That would suggest she was either ignorant of that committee’s existence or had managed to overlook it, which was remarkable given that she had spent so much of her time as CEO burnishing the Group’s reputation – at least as she perceived it – by ‘tackling the climate emergency’ and pushing other fashionable causes, through such actions as ending new loans for oil and gas extraction and plastering bank branches with ‘Pride’ posters.
Since taking the helm at NatWest, which owns Coutts, as the first female boss of a major British lender, she had made a show of putting ‘diversity’ at the heart of the business.
A common criticism of ‘diversity’ drives is that they inevitably come at the expense of calibre in personnel and quality in output, and Dame Alison is perhaps now the unwitting poster child for such complaints. Indeed, her initial letter of ‘apology’ to Farage suggests she is herself somewhat challenged in the literacy department.
Consider the following instances of incorrect or superfluous language and unhelpfully vague wording, noted in-line below.
I am writing to apologise for the deeply inappropriate comments about
yourselfyou made in the now published papers prepared for the Wealth Committee. I would like to make it clear that they do not reflect the view of the bank. [Which bank – NatWest or Coutts?]I believe very strongly that freedom of expression and access to banking are fundamental to our society and it is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views.
To this end, I would also like to personally reiterate our offer to you of alternative banking arrangements at NatWest. [Unclear if this includes Coutts, but presumably not, making the apology somewhat empty]
I fully understand
yoursyour and the public’s concern that the processes for bank account closure are not sufficiently transparent. Customers have a right to expect their bank to make consistent decisions against publicly available criteria and those decisions should be communicated clearly and openly with them, within the constraints imposed by the law.To achieve this, sector–wide change is required, but your experience, highlighted in recent days, has shown we need to also put our own processes under scrutiny
too. As a result I am commissioning a full review of the Coutts processes for how these decisions are made and communicated, to ensure we provide a better, clearer and more consistent experience for customers in future.The review will be reporting to me as NatWest Group CEO.
I welcome the FCA’s reviews of
regulatoryrules associated with Politically Exposed Persons, and we will implement the recommendations of our review alongside any changes that they or the Governmentmakesmake to theoverallregulatory framework.Yours sincerely,
Alison Rose
“They’d genuinely rather have a less qualified ethnic minority who can’t even compose an email to the clients because it helps with their ESG Rating,” an unnamed banker told the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson.
Many Daily Sceptic readers will be unsurprised by these failings, having been confronted with “Please practice social distancing” signs on walls and floors in NatWest and RBS branches for the entire duration of the pandemic. ‘Practice’ here is a verb, of course, and should be spelled ‘practise’.
In response to criticism on this point when raised a while ago, ‘John’ from NatWest tweeted: “We’ve been advised the use of practice can also work as a variable noun in this instance, as we are asking our customers to do something in our branch i.e., practice social distancing.”
Hi Catherine, Thanks for your feedback. We've been advised the use of practice can also work as a variable noun in this instance, as we are asking our customers to do something in our branch i.e. practice social distancing – John
— NatWest (@NatWest_Help) September 14, 2020
That response is nonsense: “Please practise” is unambiguously a request to perform an action, to practise social distancing.
Maybe the Farage debacle will see a new CEO appointed with higher literacy standards, but I doubt any such requirement will be in the job description.
Colin Tabb is a pseudonym.
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Personally Im a fan of correct speling but not of remooving superfluous language from other peoples work
I disagree. Every word should count. Words that do not hold their place make for uncomfortable reading.
Actually I am not a fan of the superfluous in anything be it food, art, literature, cars and so on. I am not a minimalist but add ons need to enhance and not confuse or detract.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman’s Odyssey.
Thank you Marcus.
Not sure about “remooving.”
My entire comment was meant to be a misspelt joke! Tickled me, anyway.
A further point:
This paragraph is in itself a bit of a bobbing turd :
“I believe very strongly that freedom of expression and access to banking are fundamental to our society and it is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views.”
So why is the bank closing Sir Nigel’s accounts? Why has the true reason for debanking not been disclosed in the letter?
A poorly constructed letter which deliberately adds insult to injury.
Indeed.
“legally held political and personal views” This implies that it’s possible to have “illegally held” political and personal views. I wonder what these could be?
‘Legally held’. People like to make things sound grander or give them gravity and authority than they warrant. Like the chumps who put official looking ‘No Parking’ signs up but have ‘Polite Notice’ to make it look like ‘Police Notice’. This effort from Dame Rose does appear to indicate she was distracted part way though dictation, spun around a bit for a couple of paragraphs, then remembered where she was for the closing sentiments.
Possibly. My reading of it is more like this:
“Your views are distasteful to me and to the bank and to polite, rightthinking people everywhere, but they are not so extreme as to be illegal, so sadly we cannot use them to justify closing your account, as we will get into trouble.”
And then: “However, others might have such extreme political and personal views that certainly ought to be illegal and may well be illegal if expressed publicly and for such people we would certainly be closing their accounts without hesitation”
Farage is sort of mainstream. Don’t think as many people would be defending Tommy Robinson’s right to have a bank account.
But they should be – being allowed to unperson him was testing the water, and has emboldened the scum running these businesses.
I tend to agree. Robinson has been convicted of fraud, perhaps that’s relevant to having a bank account, but in general everyone should be able to have a bank account, unless it can be proved they are laundering money or something.
But they ought to, especially as he exposed local government bribery to silence teachers and others in an apparent bullying case.
Investigative journalists used to do that. What happened to them?
This has been bothering me as well. Provide there is actually something as an illegal opinion (definitely in Germany) that’s no business of a bank as banks are not responsible for prosecuting criminals.
“I believe very strongly that freedom of expression and access to banking are fundamental to our society and it is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views.”
There is so much that is wrong and actually downright nasty in this paragraph:
How on earth does ‘freedom of expression’ and having a bank account become linked? Offering a bank account is simply a business transaction. End of.
“access to banking are fundamental to our society”…but we are shutting you down and there is sod all you can do about it. Eh? Come again?
“exit” with clear etymological links to “execute.” Nice.
“legally held political and personal views”
So Alison Rose and or the bank hold the rights to defining what is legal and even what is personal. As opposed to what exactly?
And this is a banking group that has catered to mafia personnel, General Pinochet and those arch grifters, ne’er do wells and tax dodgers the Saxe-Coburgs – German links again.
Oh yes Natwest group a paramount within the banking industry.
Disgusting and appalling.
Not that this is a surprise, but it’s obvious she is unrepentant and doesn’t think she has done anything wrong, except get caught “exiting” someone with the balls and clout to stand up to her. As per my post above, it’s clear that she thinks “views” are relevant, and the reference to “legally held” is really just saying “views that right thinking people like me find abhorrent but cannot as yet get away with using to stop someone having a bank account”.
Agreed tof.
No surprise at any of that. A competent secretary and legal team should have corrected all those errors!
Its secretary will also be a diversity hire, probably not having English as its first language.
Simply another unqualified diversity hire – nothing to see here.
Variable noun? I think just about any noun is now variable. But honestly, how do you practise social distancing? Withdraw into a corner or melt into the shrubbery when people are about? You’d get carted off to the local insane asylum. I can’t imagine anything more daft. Well, I can but I won’t get into that now….
Now, now Aethelred. Don’t forget what your Mum told you – “practise makes perfect.”
My favourite bit is “I would like to make it clear that they do not reflect the view of the bank.” Really? Then who’s view do they represent, and how did they come to be in a subject access request report produced by… her bank?
To me the main problem with this letter is the bit that says, “they (the comments) do not reflect the view of the bank.”
Clearly, these are exactly the views of the bank. It wasn’t one misplaced word – it was forty pages of social media tittle tattle deliberately constructed to smear a customer, and then acted on by senior management.
She committed a banker’s cardinal sin, and so did Davies, a former chief regulator FCS, by ignoring of not defending it.
In Switzerland, both would already be in prison and everywhere, they are now toast professionally in finance.
And actually, there is also expensive precedence for what happens and should happen when a bank’s CEO can’t keep his mouth shut:
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breuer-Interview
Howard Davies – head of the FCA at the time of the crash in 2008. Clearly about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I wonder where he will be promoted to next?
Aged 21 in the early 80’s, I met a friend of my parents; he was a Director of National Westminster Bank. After a few pints – he said to me, “Let me give you some advice in business. Never trust the buggers that take it too seriously”.
His advice has served me well. I suspect Alison Rose may fall into the group he was warning me about.
Reflexive pronouns are used by call centre staff all the time. It’s a plague.
Agree with those, other than “the government make”, which could, according to various (confusing and contradictory) websites, just as reasonably read “government makes”. To my ear, the singular sounds more natural – and in the end I think it’s more a question of what sounds natural, don’t you think? That said, I wouldn’t ever say “the police makes…” – which would have to be plural. Curious.
“They’d genuinely rather have a less qualified ethnic minority who can’t even compose an email to the clients because it helps with their ESG Rating,”
Most definitely not in the same league, but a few years ago when I was a Civil Servant a black woman who had recently migrated to the UK was recruited. She was very pleasant; very anxious to please but simply couldn’t do the job. She really shouldn’t have passed her probation period. But the department was located in a part of the country where very few “minorities” chose to live so diversity targets had not been reached ….. and her employment was confirmed by those higher up the hierarchy …. who didn’t have to work directly with her.
You missed one…
”To achieve this, sector–wide change is required, but your experience, highlighted in recent days, has shown we need to also put our own processes under scrutiny
too.”To also put?
Don’t be surprised if Rose is the next CEO of the National Trust. I dropped my membership 3 years ago as they wanted me to be ashamed of my heritage
Spoiler alert: Speaking from experience, Bank executives don’t write their own letters – a PA or junior manager will write all their letters for them. All the executive has to do is to read it and sign it. Of course, read before you sign is the important bit, because of that other unofficial legal maxim – signature attracts liability.
This letter looks to me as though it was written and signed in a hurry without anyone of experience taking a few minutes to knock it into shape.