Amidst the backdrop of the Coutts banking scandal, figures obtained by the Mail on Sunday reveal that U.K. banks are on the verge of breaking account closure records, with over a million accounts shuttered in the past four years. Here’s an excerpt:
More than a million bank accounts have been shut since 2019 – and the rate of closures is accelerating, the Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Figures obtained under a Freedom of Information request show that banks are on track to smash the previous record of 343,500 accounts closed last year.
The alarming news comes amid the continuing fall-out from the Nigel Farage affair.
NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose was forced to quit her job last month over the closure of the former UKIP leader’s account at Coutts – the lender’s private banking arm – partly because of his political views.
Banks can shut accounts with as little as 14 days’ notice if they suspect it is being used to launder money, which would leave innocent customers financially stranded.
The Government plans to introduce new rules to give customers up to 90 days to challenge closures.
Banks will also have to explain why accounts have been closed. But campaigners and victims claim this is unfair to the thousands of innocent customers who have been de-banked despite doing nothing wrong.
“I think the legislation should go further and limit banks to closing accounts only when there is clear evidence of criminal activity,” said James Daley, founder of campaign group Fairer Finance.
The de-banking data shows that so far this year almost 200,000 bank accounts have been axed because of concerns over financial crime activity such as fraud and money laundering.
The rate of account closures has exploded from under 50,000 in 2016 when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the City regulator, introduced new reporting rules.
These require almost 250 lenders to submit an annual return of account closures.
The FCA said more monitoring by banks may explain some of the recent spike in shutdowns.
But experts say banks have become too risk-averse and rely too much on artificial intelligence to investigate and flag fraudulent behaviour.
“There has been a dumbing down of standards in the past 12 months or so, and many of those affected are in fact innocent of wrongdoing,” said Jeremy Asher of law firm Setfords.
Worth reading in full.
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Bring on cbdc! Can’t see any other reason an industry would want to cull its on customers!
Something stinks here.
One million bank accounts closed in four years means 5,000 accounts per week closed and allegedly for illegal activities. If that was the case our Judicial system would lock up and yet we are expected to believe that a massive amount of criminal financial activity is taking place on a daily basis. I’m calling Bullshit on this story.
Until Sir Nigel lifted the lid on this cesspit industry none of us knew any of this but apparently banks were casting aside customers on a daily basis and yet nary a sqeak from MSM. Really?
In other words as Neil Oliver would have it:
“It’s not always about what they say it’s about.”
Just what is going on I’m not sure at the moment but there is alot more to this than meets the eye.
Agreed.
I’m saying – for now – that some algorithm, ill-conceived and badly built in a rush, is going rogue. I am not going to use the phrase “Artificial Intelligence” because there is no such thing.
The crooked house is gone! Destroyed by fire!!
Saw this yesterday. What a shame. It was only sold by the brewery on Thursday by the brewery, I believe. Must have been some blaze to burn it literally to the ground. How far away is it from the local fire station, I wonder.? Anyway, Its a nice plot now, just the right size for a block of flats…
To house illegal aliens or such like ! Apparently the access road was blocked so the Fire Persons couldn’t get to it ! The photos were unreal , an absolute inferno 🔥
Listed building as well ! Skullduggery abounds in this Strange new world !
As I mentioned at the top of this post, you only kill off your costumer base if there are bigger rewards down the line! Cbdc!!
A common thread seems to be that the Banks set up a compliance department remote from and unaccountable to one’s so-called ‘Business Manager’s influence. The latter are merely financial products sales persons. HSBCs units is based in Coventry, Barclays in Leicester. I have had dealings with both when HSBC arbitrarily closed my domestic business account after I had complied not once but 3 times with their demands for identity documents. I could not decide whether their apparent sheer incompetence was a foil for a predetermined action or not. One might receive a vaguely worded letter stating that they need ‘some further details’ or a text message claiming, falsely, that they had sent a letter requesting such details without response. The only way to communicate with these drongos is via telephone at standard rate where one waits for between 15 minutes and an hour before one of their diversity hires deigns to answer. They do not communicate by email and the number from which their test originate will not accept text replies. Every interaction wastes an hour or so of valuable business time. Others believe it is simply the sheer incompetence of those tasked with process; I see it as a near deliberate way of angering their customers. But the banks have a monopoly.granted by their licences.
I feel your scepticism is valid, but please avoid rabbit-holes. The psych tactics we’ve been subjected to are worrying and fully real.
Do your own research, make your own decisions, debate robustly with anyone who imposes their view on you.
Good luck in life, I have my fingers crossed for you x
I’ve had calls from the ‘Fraud Unit’ when making particular transactions. Its an annoyance but nothing more.
I think we have to consider ‘creeping self-regulation’ as part of the problem. (And for many other problems). All of these ideas, (…and we can go back through DEI, to H&S) have started with a core concept, making things safer, making things fairer, making things more honest. Sounds great doesn’t it..? Who would argue against that.?
The problem comes when, whatever it is, stops being everyone’s job and becomes a job in its own right. At that point it is inevitable that it is is going to take root in people whose primary interest is to perpetuate the problem and its scope, and to make it totally unsolvable. There are careers and mortgage payments to protect. Of course there are going to be ‘black box’ computer solutions involved because of the number of transactions. Its not going to be picked up in branch if the clerk notices a shifty bloke depositing large sums of cash. More and further are the mantra, safer and safer until there is only the very tiniest and totally unlikely chance of something going wrong. Then they want more regulation for that too.
Governments like to think that they can solve problems, so they write laws, and create watchdogs. Regulation begats regulation. Insurers become aware of it, and set the bar at ‘compliant with…’, and before you know where you are you have huge departments dedicated to that thing that really should just be part of what everyone does, if we weren’t now hemmed in on all sides by the Government, the regulators and watchdogs, the insurers and Uncle Tom Cobley. Risk aversion has won.
Can this be manipulated by bad actors.? Easily.. They are looking for the next problem all the time. All you need to do is put it in front of them, and they snatch at it like a hungry child taking some bread.
Brilliant & concise analogy 👏
Something is very amiss here. Unfortunately you are over-thinking the issue.
And how many found new accounts elsewhere?
It would be helpful to have actual data on the people/businesses who are being debanked to spot what the trends are/see who else is being targetted aside from cash based businesses, because no way in hell is this volume of closures simply due to suspicious fraudulent activity. Perhaps this is something Farage’s new organisation will be able to do?
Good point.