Former NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose is set to receive a final pay packet of around £2.4 million, despite resigning in disgrace over the Farage-Coutts debanking scandal last month. She broke customer confidentiality and briefed the BBC with a false story, yet is nonetheless expected to receive £1.115 million in shares on top of her £1.115 million salary. Nice work if you can get it (or lose it, apparently)….
UPDATE: Farage weighs in…
The £2.4m payout to Dame Alison Rose is a sick joke. This is the corrupt British establishment looking after its own. pic.twitter.com/EljcDWlA3U
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 23, 2023
“A sick joke”…
NatWest Chairman Sir Howard Davies has carefully “reflected” on his position and decided to stay in post amid the Farage scandal… despite losing two CEOs in two days. Speaking on an investors’ call this morning, Davies said he served “at [the] behest of shareholders” and will stay on for another year as planned. The fact NatWest increased its pre-tax profit by nearly £1 billion year-on-year in the first six months of 2023 is probably meant to soothe shareholders’ minds…
Davies also refused to confirm whether Farage would have his old Coutts bank account restored, because it would be “inappropriate” to discuss that sort of thing:
“It isn’t appropriate for me to talk about the status of his accounts, whether at Coutts or at NatWest. I really should not and will not do that. But as you say, it has been widely reported that he has been offered alternative banking arrangements.”
At least someone in NatWest understands client confidentiality now – although “alternative banking arrangements” sounds like an elegant way of saying “no”…
Coutts chief executive Peter Flavel has resigned, less than 48 hours after his boss Alison Rose also quit for briefing false information – and breaching client confidentiality – to the BBC about Nigel Farage’s finances. He announced the inevitable this afternoon:
“In the handling of Mr Farage’s case we have fallen below the bank’s high standards of personal service. As CEO of Coutts it is right that I bear ultimate responsibility for this, which is why I am stepping down.”
Another scalp for Nigel…
UPDATE: Nigel responds…
It was only a matter of time before Peter Flavel, Coutts CEO, stood down.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) July 27, 2023
The ultimate responsibility for the dossier de-banking me for my political views lies with him.
I even wrote to Mr Flavel twice before going public and didn’t receive an acknowledgment.
NatWest Group chairman Howard Davies is still clinging to his job. For now…
Nigel Farage isn’t done. After NatWest CEO Alison Rose resigned in the early hours of this morning, Farage is now calling for the entire board to step down for publicly backing Rose yesterday afternoon – even after she was revealed as the source of the BBC’s false story on Nigel’s finances. He added her resignation was “a start”… and now wants the scalps of the “whole board”…
“Anybody on that board that backed that statement that was put out at 5.42pm yesterday, a totally unsustainable and untrue statement, anybody that backed that behaviour, should be gone… the first rule of banking is you have to respect the privacy of the customer. You also have to respect the GDPR regulations. They were both broken, very clearly, by the boss of NatWest…”
Both Downing Street and the Treasury have backed Rose’s resignation, with Number 10 saying it was “the right thing” to do, and Treasury Minister Andrew Griffith adding “this would never have happened if NatWest had not taken it upon itself to withdraw a bank account due to someone’s lawful political views.” So far the Labour front bench have kept quiet, although Starmer is on Radio 5 Live at 10a.m. You can’t barrage the Farage…
UPDATE: Rose has also been told to step down from Downing Street’s Business Council and Energy Efficiency Taskforce. Finished…
UPDATE II: Starmer has also said Rose was right to go, and “NatWest got this one wrong“…
The BBC’s Business Editor Simon Jack has finally apologised to Nigel Farage for the “incomplete and inaccurate” reporting on the suspension of Farage’s Coutts bank account:
@Nigel_Farage The information on which we based our reporting on Nigel Farage and his bank accounts came from a trusted and senior source. However the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore I would like to apologise to Mr Farage.
— Simon Jack (@BBCSimonJack) July 24, 2023
Took him long enough. Nige’s legal threats probably woke him up a bit…
