I do apologise Lincs, I was getting my ‘Unbanked’ and ‘debanked’ mixed up…
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When banks were family run (not all banks) and had branches on every high street complete with a manager and helpful staff, banks were good…Since then the family run or small individual banks have either merged with other banks or been bought out.
They are now big global corporations who couldn’t give a toss about customer satisfaction to the point that they can be picky about a customers private life, and political and religious preferences, as has been witnessed recently in the Farage affair.
The banks are getting too big for their breeches and need taking down a peg or two, and I hope that Farage, backed by the government will do something about this terrible situation that each one of us could find ourselves in.
It’s always the same with these global companies, they monopolise their particular industry and drive all the family run and small companies into receivership or they are swept up and merged into one big faceless company.
This is what happened with the Nat West, and it’s not the first time that the higher management has had to resign due to mismanagement…This Wiki article concerning the history of the Nat West makes very interesting reading…
NatWest - Wikipedia.
Quote:-
The bank was hit by the stock market crash of 1987 Black_Monday_(1987)) and involvement in the collapse of Blue Arrow The Department_of_Trade_and_Industry_(United_Kingdom)) report on the affair was critical of the bank’s management and resulted in the resignation of several members of the board, including then-chairman Lord Boardman Later, the bank would divest its overseas subsidiaries. The North American operations were sold to Fleet Bank and Hong Kong Bank of Canada and the Australian and New Zealand branches were sold to Salomon Smith Barney and the National Australia Bank Thereafter the bank concentrated on its core domestic business as the restyled NatWest Group, reflecting its modern positioning as a portfolio of businesses.In the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing the NatWest Tower was devastated by a Provisional IRA bomb and the bank vacated the building and later sold it.Then, in 1997, NatWest Markets the corporate and investment banking arm formed in 1992, revealed that a £50m loss had been discovered, revised to £90.5m after further investigations. Investor and shareholder confidence was so badly shaken that the Bank of England had to instruct the board of directors to resist calls for the resignation of its most senior executives in an effort to draw a line under the affair. The bank’s internal controls and risk management were severely criticised in 2000 and its aggressive push into investment banking questioned, after a lengthy investigation by the Securities and Futures Authority. The bank’s move into complicated derivative products that it did not fully understand seemed to indicate poor management. By the end of 1997 parts of NatWest Markets had been sold, others becoming Greenwich NatWest in 1998. It had purchased Gleason Partners in 1996 for $135 million only to resell it back to GP’s founder for just $4 million 3 years later in 1999, a whopping $131 million loss.
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The banks are getting too big for their breeches and need taking down a peg or two.
Pedantic and condescending; just need reminding that oldies will not stand for nonsense and the attitude changes instantly.
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Estimates ?
Based on what ?
If people choose not to have a bank account that is their business and they will find it difficult to pay bills .if they keep money in the house they will be vulnerable to thieves and rogues .
.
Maybe NF wouldn’t have taken up the flag for others who have had this happen but even so, his prominence and actions in the matter have brought the problem into focus and this will be beneficial to everyone. Coutts chose the wrong person to debank …or perhaps they couldn’t have chosen a better person.
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Or they could have handled it so very much more professionally and low key. Whoever wrote the internal review document about Farage should be sacked along with their line manager. No professional business would put in a written document the inflammatory sentences that was used to describe the reputational risk they saw in Farage. That was worse than careless, that was idiotic. And for the NatWest CEO to decide to “leak” the reason as being purely financial was very unprofessional in any business, let alone a bank. No quality review checks, no PR & communications plan, no preparation. Hopeless.
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NF and Gina Miller are agreeing about something.
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There would have been no discussion of the ins and outs of all this had it not been for the fact it has been so very public. Many would have remained unaware had it not been for NF’s case.
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And yet.
Back 8 or so years ago there was a series of debanking decisions, mainly by HSBC, to remove banking services from a number of UK based organisations and individuals. This was reported at the time - but ignored because all the organisations and individuals were Muslims. It might have been reported more but some news outlets decided to suppress this story. In fact, the Telegraph lost one of its principle columnists over this issue. Peter Osborne wrote a piece on this scandal (a proper scandal as one organisation was a charity whose bank account closure prevented it dispersing aid for some time) but the Telegraph refused to publish his article. He resigned as a result. Osborne tried to raise this scandal with senior government ministers but no-one cared.
So, sorry, but Farage’s pretend victimhood is not the start of anything.
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Same thing happened about 5 years ago, too - the target that time was legal immigrants from the continents of Africa and Asia.
People who had lived and worked here for decades were sent letters informing them their bank accounts would be closed down.
It happened around the same time that Theresa May was having the “hostile environment” drive against illegal immigrants. The Government had instructed the Banks to de-bank any illegal immigrants but they were also de-banking many established legal immigrants too.
I remember The Guardian used to keep reporting this issue but I can’t recall Farage getting up on his soapbox about this injustice.
Thanks Lincs and Boot for you input, however, I think Farage had other irons in the fire at the time, and he wasn’t reporting on a news channel. He has mentioned recently, when asked by many people if he will be returning to politics, he always answers that he can do much more good for the people where he is now, and bringing this situation to the public’s attention just proves that.
Farage and especially GB News represents the people of the UK, but unfortunately some of the people who consider themselves middle or upper class (not all) don’t like it up em’…Well hard cheese, I think Farage and GB News are doing a sterling job and they certainly speak for me and just about everyone I know.
Bravo GB News and Nigel… 
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Here’s a link to a Report from 2018 about Nat West closing people’s accounts in a discriminatory way, without giving them a reason -
Yes, hopefully with Farage’s help we can put a stop to all those shenanigans boot.
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Yes, debanking should have resulted in an outcry at the time and had something done about it …but it didn’t. Just as well NF has given it prominence now (for whatever reason) and there has been an awareness and outcry about it. Better late than never.
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But he seems to have made a difference where others have failed.
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Ditto, his success is clear always one step ahead of the rest, his position at GB news attracting those who can see the advantages.
Tories Lee Anderson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies.
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In 5 years time, this will all be forgotten by many and there will be another bank scandal everyone is making a fuss about - just like everyone seems to have forgotten the last de-banking scandal and the fuss that was raised in 2018 - if you think it wasn’t successful, you must have forgotten that the fuss made was big enough and successful enough to cause the government to do a U-Turn and shelve plans to force the banks to do even more de-banking - maybe it was played down in some sections of the media but I can remember it.
And it was the Citizens Advice Bureau who successfully campaigned for the right for everyone to be able to open a basic bank account, even if they were turned down for other banking facilities. They carried on campaigning until the Government and the banks listened and reached a voluntary agreement for the right to basic bank accounts.
My point was less about Farage and more about the right wing press who have stoked this pretend outrage. As I mentioned in a previous post, the columnist Peter Osborne resigned from the Telegraph because they refused to print an article he wrote about UK Muslims being de-banked. Here are the recent Telegraph front page headlines:
19 July - bank axed Farage as he doesn’t align with our values
20 July - bank boss under pressure over Farage scandal
21 July - bank boss finally apologies to Farage
But back a few years ago they wouldn’t even print an article deep inside the paper. Because presumably it did not align with their values? The papers are shaping your views by what they do not print as much as by what they do print.
Farage is not going to change anything apart from how people perceive him - he wants to be viewed as fighting for the people. Convenient he gets such support in presenting this very false image of him. Imagine the headlines if it was, say, Keir Starmer who had received notice that his Coutts account was to be closed. It would be “Shock, leftie leader has posh bank account” rather than the gushing sympathy Farage got.
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Can’t believe NF’s old enemy Gina Miller (the anti Brexit campaigner) are now both on the same side because she has been debanked too.
Who would ever have imagined that!
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Hi
If it had have been one of us who had complained the Bank would just have ignored up.
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