The boss of NatWest apologised to Nigel Farage last night for a “deeply inappropriate” internal report that found he was not ‘inclusive’ enough to be a Coutts customer. The Mail has more.
In a letter to the former UKIP leader, Dame Alison Rose insisted the assessment of Mr Farage “does not reflect the views of the bank”.
She stressed that “freedom of expression” and access to banking were fundamental to society, saying she has ordered a review of Coutts’ processes. However, she stopped short of offering to restore Mr. Farage’s relationship with the exclusive private bank, instead repeating the offer of an account with NatWest.
The letter emerged as the Treasury announced that U.K. banks will be subject to stricter rules over closing customers’ accounts, in an effort to protect freedom of speech.
Dame Alison has been urged to “take responsibility” after the Brexiteer unearthed the NatWest subsidiary’s secret dossier accusing him of promoting “xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views” and noting his “Thatcherite beliefs”.
The letter from Dame Alison to Mr Farage, dated for today, said: “I am writing to apologise for the deeply inappropriate comments about yourself 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.
“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 alternate banking arrangements at NatWest.
“I fully understand your and the public’s concern that the processes for bank account closure are not sufficiently transparent. Customers have a right to expert 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 better, clearer and more consistent experience for customers in future.”
Under the changes unveiled this evening, banks will have to explain why they are shutting down someone’s account under the new rules. They previously have not had to provide a rationale for doing so.
The Government has also extended the notice period for a forced account closure from 30 days to 90 days, which it said gives customers more time to challenge the decision through the Financial Ombudsman Service or find a replacement bank.
Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and it must be respected by all institutions.
“Banks occupy a privileged place in society, and it is right that we fairly balance the rights of banks to act in their commercial interest, with the right for everyone to express themselves freely.
“These changes will boost the rights of customers – providing real transparency, time to appeal and making it a much fairer playing field.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Will the apology be enough to save the under-fire NatWest boss? Allison Pearson in the Telegraph says she has to go, while Ross Clark in the Express says NatWest should lose its banking licence!
Stop Press 2: The Free Speech Union has just published some FAQs about what to do if you’ve been de-banked, including how to submit an SAR request and a template SAR that’s easy to adapt.
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This isn’t an apology. It’s a gritted-teeth “we made an error” (and got found out).
There is no justification for not re-opening his Coutts accounts. She should do that ….. and then resign.
And if she doesn’t, she should be sacked.
The only error they acknowledge was to be found out. I do not believe Coutts accept what they did was wrong. There should be firings at the top and deeply within their PEP review committee.
A little too late, Dame Rose. This has been an obscene, dystopian failure on the part of the banking group that you lead.
You most definitely need to go.
The misuse of the reflexive pronoun has become commonplace among call centre staff, but you don’t expect the CEO of Nat West to say “yourself” when she means “you”. The bank is run by morons. How many times can that apology have been checked? How many people contributed? Yet they get the grammar wrong in the 1st sentence.
Get your money out.
—“absolutely not our policy to exit a customer”—. WTF?
Surely a more appropriate verb might be; shaft, dump, humiliate or victimise
Additionally, writing that the ‘content of the report are not the Bank’s views’, then who’s views are they? A report put together by the Bank’s reputational committee don’t represent the views of the bank? Reminiscent of a toddler caught with their hands in the ice-cream tub saying “it wasn’t me!”
It’s got all the hallmarks of we got caught this time we will be more careful in the future. The commissioned review is just the tool to do it, and we will be left with the tools in charge.
And presumably it wasn’t this rogue “reputational committee” that refused to review the decision, nor the reputational committees of other banks that turned down his applications there. Nor the reputational committee that leaked falsehoods to the BBC.
There’s too much of this “If someone lower down in the staff order did wrong, he’s a very naughty boy…” Usually, if that fails, some “very naughty boy” is picked out for sacking – probably the one person on the committee who said, “This is a bit OTT, guys.”
And even that is after several thousand such debanking decisions have been made and endorsed by the entire company.
Respect due to your earlier comment re reflexive pronoun, but how about “…of a toddler caught with ITS hands in…”
Quite so. The climate of any organisation comes from the top.
‘…to exit a customer?’
I think I’m right in saying that ’To exit’ is an intransitive verb, meaning it does not have an object. The only way in which this makes sense is if the bank is already inside the customer.
Mirriam-Webster agrees with you, sort of. It can be a transitive verb, “he exited the room” but the object is, as you say, the place which is being left, not the entity doing the leaving.
Co-incidentally, MW also gives a special meaning to transitive use, namely “to cause (a computer program or routine) to cease running”. (I disagree: as a computer professional I would normally say that the program exited, but never that I exited the program, even though the word is on the menu.)
Perhaps Coutts have invented a new euphemism, rather like the police or armed forces “terminate” or “disable” Brazilian electricians or enemies. Authorities do have a tendency to subtly extend or warp language: social workers involved in eliciting child abuse allegations claim that “the” child has “not yet disclosed”, but omit an object, thus turning “disclose” into an intransitive verb with sinister meaning. The adjective “inappropriate” can mean almost anything!
Yes, that word “inappropriate” is problematic…
Yes, and “exit” kind of makes me think of death…
The Mafia prefers – “… sleeps with the fishes”.
Perhaps “emphatically” might have been better than “absolutely”. I do not believe it.
If I was on the bank’s board I would be wondering what value I had got for the multi-million pound remuneration she receives.
Her mealy-mouthed excuse for an apology makes no attempt to take responsibility for the bank’s actions, only the language used in an internal document.
I suspect, and hope, that this is the first ripple in a tidal wave that will engulf corporate wokery and wash it away, leaving the likes of Nat West and Wickes as driftwood on the beach of commerce.
What the board gets for that salary is a fire break from the heat. They can blame her, and terminate her – even though she was implementing policies presumably they had approved.
But what do shareholders or customers get…?
I would suggest that the customers get… business as usual. Until these organisations start concentrating on their core purpose and not on trying to be nice and failing, it wont get any better. The only reason they can get away with it is because we have nowhere else to go. There are quite a few words to describe this state of affairs, monopoly is one, and tyranny is another.
It is insufficient for just Rose to lose her job, as lose it she must, but the M.D. of Coutts too must go as a bare minimum, I would also say that those involved in the DIE team must go along with senior members of the H.R. department.
The house needs to be literally cleaned out.
What I do find concerning is that we seem to be seeing lots of these woke institutions are headed up by women, many with the title Dame. Cressida Dick, the woman who runs John Lewis, Did Harding, the M.D of Coutts, these ineffectual clones of Dolores Umbridge are doing so much harm to the reputation of women in the work place, who actually have worked hard to try and scale the ladder, who understand and believe in their product and that the customer always comes first. My concern is that these useless aforementioned tokens are ruinining the opportunities for normal woman who don’t buy into this cr-p.
Its what you get when you apply affirmative selective actions, diversity targets to look good in the eyes of those who want a fluffy nice and cuddly society, opposed to the rest of us who want them to employ the best as to do the best job in supplying the services they are purportedly supplying.
We have gone from a species formed on the survival of the fittest to a species in decline promoted by the survival of the thickest.
“We have gone from a species formed on the survival of the fittest to a species in decline promoted by the survival of the thickest.”
Brilliant.
This is a post I considered writing last night but did not because it would not have been seen, so many thanks.
It is quite clear that Alison Rose is one of a specific group, and I came across many such in the Civil Service – scheming, evil, brutal women who stopped at nothing in their efforts to scale the greasy pole; always utterly useless at whatever job they had but brilliant at attributing blame to somebody else. Horrible, horrible harridans.
It is indeed this class of women who are undermining the good and decent women in the workforce and to be frank are cheapening and brutalising society in the process.
The likes of Alison Rose need throwing on the scrap heap where they belong and bloody quickly.
Is Ladbrokes running a book? I wonder if she will still be in place by Lunchtime?
Sorry luv, I will have to take your first answer.
Affirmative action appointments, like this woman, rarely end well.
The bank is a non-living entity, it can’t have views. This was the view of the board. They watched as this story unfolded, clearly unable to judge the situation or the public’s reaction with any degree of accuracy. Now they come with their weaselly words and ways, squirming their way off the hook, wriggling about trying to deflect and promising to do better. The damage has been done and revealed. The government does no better with its words either. All their lofty pronouncements are deadwood in my view. If they had not tried to cancel such a high profile figure as Nigel Farage, this situation would be continuing with deaf-earred policy minions scuttling about infecting everything with DEI and all the rest. What gets me is how the government minister spouts all this stuff that they clearly do not believe – it’s just words to them – about ‘freedom of speech being the cornerstone of our democracy’ when it is so plainly not. Obviously they haven’t heard of the outright censorship and cancelling of anyone with a different opinion going on. Expect more of this as we move towards the canceller’s wet dream of CBDCs.
“canceller”
If that was a miss spell or on purpose a new description of “Hunt the Chunt“ has been born
Well Done 
At first I thought it was “chancellor” misspelled.
Agreed, the bank can’t hold an opinion. All those who did this should be identified and fired.
Similarly weasily, the recent news that 100 companies had written to be govt to agitate for faster progress on net zero. No, the woketards working for these companies have chosen to make a political intervention.
Business needs to be forcibly ejected from any and all forms of political meddling.
Right, the bank “misspole” with a 40 page letter. It was all an unfortunate mistake, or a misunderstanding, or both…
People in the position of responsibility shouldn’t be allowed to spew out total nonsense without being challenged.
No, it’s the other way around – people should not be prevented from challenging them. The problem right now is that we seem to have a culture of too much trust in authority. Anyone who betrays a lack of trust in authority runs the extreme risk of being denounced etc.
I took all of my money out of NatWest over 23 years ago when they lost £1,500 of salary from my first job. It took me a year to get it back. In the end, I went to the branch and refused to leave until they read the 50+ pages of correspondence I had written up to that point, and then give me the money back, plus compensation of £500. Utterly incompetent fools, the lot of them. Kudos to my 19 year old self.
It now seems (!) they are worse than incompetent.
Apparently even this apology only came about because of pressure from the Treasury.
Note well the legalistic phrasing of the letter.
If ‘hate speech’ laws are broken you can still lose access to banking facilities.
The whole woke edifice needs to be destroyed.
It would appear that she is sorry she got caught. The same could be said for ex BBC hack Jon Sopel.
The BBC are NEVER sorry. You should know that by now. Savile alone made that clear…
The Sopel apology includes a dig at the BBC for producing misinformation: –
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1681970843675443200
Total capitulation, Alison Rose’s resignation, the Crown stripping her of her damehood, restoration of Mr Farage’s accounts with substantial compensation, plus an inquiry into all the other accounts they closed with offers to restore them and compensation, are the only acceptable outcome. The entire senior leadership of Coutts must resign and all DIE and ESG initiatives must be outlawed in all businesses with immediate effect. No more brainwashing and struggle sessions, no more unconscious bias training. Just let people get on with their jobs. If companies attempt to bring these ideologies back into the workplace, employees should be allowed to report them and trigger an investigation which will have serious financial penalties.
Companies should be legally required to do what businesses did until recently: maximise profits for shareholders and no more. Companies supporting any other causes has to be banned, which is tough for charities, but charities shouldn’t be reliant on big business and the state anyway and should rely on the good will of the shareholder. Any donations from businesses should to go through government approvals first to ensure there’s no political bias in the donation.
...’charities should rely on the goodwill of the shareholder”
You’ve lost me there.
As in, the shareholder reaps a dividend and gives money from his personal account if he chooses. The business should donate absolutely nothing.
“In a letter to the former UKIP leader, Dame Alison Rose insisted the assessment of Mr Farage “does not reflect the views of the bank”.”
So who’s views are being pushed forward?
This suggests to me that Alison Rose is not in charge of the partly state owned bank so who is?
When will Sir Nigel receive a proper apology and his rightful compensation?
Obviously I am not in the same league as Coutts and Nigel Farage, but NatWest and I had a brief skirmish recently over two transactions, one to a private individual (small emergency loan) and one to an organisation (as annual subscription). Both payments were unremarkable and had obvious precedents. I have never had this happen in fifty years with NW. The bank clerk would not allow me to transfer money from account to these accounts. She would not give any specific reason, merely vague statements of “policy” or “safeguarding vulnerable people”. I flounced out, threatening to close my account, but didn’t. In the event I transported cash across town by hand! I was suspicious at the time that the reason for the organisation subscription’s being declined was that it could reasonably be accused by opponents of being “anti-woke”, though that is not its prime function. If they do that again at my next subscription renewal I would probably close my account, though I don’t know if other banks have similar procedures.
“It is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views.” Yet that is EXACTLY what you did.
‘Yes I am standing in my blood soaked kitchen holding a carving knife above my dead husband after an argument about politics, but it is absolutely not my policy to kill someone on the basis of a political disagreement.’
However, Jon Sopel expressed an opinion (his own? that of the BBC? that of The News Agents?) that NF was “exited” because of his poverty, although he has now retracted, or been coerced into retracting, that opinion.
Sir Nigel on GB News last night reacting to Ms Rose’s fake apology advised the ten thousand or so Nat West customers (!) similarly de-banked to immediately submit a SARS.
Even 100 hundred SARS arriving at a business would cripple it and I should know having had to process a few in my time. They are horrendous to deal with. Every piece of information held on a “customer” has to be located and only 28 days to respond.
Sir Nigel is correct – 10,000 SARS would lock up Nat West for weeks.
SARS: Subject Access Request.
Now go after the 10 other banks with subject access requests. Name them for starters. They’re just as culpable.
If we were to take her at her word, the staff at Coutts are completely out of control from the top management. They should immediately report themselves to the FCA and PRA as being in breach of a number of regulations, not least Adequate Resources.
But we do not believe her, do we. When she says the opinions and values in the report tdid not represent those of the firm she was wrong. The staff are employed by Coutts and an employer has responsibility for their actions in the course of their employment. Coutts cannot deny responsibility.
Furthermore, under regulatory obligations the management of Coutts must show it controls the business and has suitable policies to ensure customers are treated fairly (among other reuirements). Clearly, if the CEO is now saying the actions of her staff were so nbbad she feels it necessary to make a public statement, then Nigel Farage was treated unfairly and potentially so were many other customers.
Absolutely spot on.
How does a history graduate get to become a CEO of a bank and be gifted a damehood to boot? Possibly spent their whole career playing political games? No company should appoint a CEO who has spent their whole working life inside one orgsnisation. Their outlook is far too narrow to do the job properly.
I don’t believe a woman can have a pen*s. Do you Dame Alison?. Sure discussing a clients financial dealings is a criminal offence.
Banking is an essential service, the services it supplies are necessary to survive in the system today. As banks have become more powerful, their management has become more authoritarian and tyrannical with few checks on the CEOs power. The trend in banking is fast becoming abusive as they become more political. The only real solution is to nationalize banking or in the very least, offer the services of a government owned nationalized banking alternative.