Equality campaigner is the newest to get checking account closed
An Equality campaigner is the newest high-profile determine to be informed their checking account is being closed. Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, Equalities and Human Rights Commissioner for Scotland, has been a loyal buyer for 32 years.
But Prof Sawers and husband Allan McKechnie have been informed their Royal Bank of Scotland joint account, containing a wholesome stability of 1000’s of kilos, shall be shut subsequent month.
Notification arrived by letter two weeks in the past from RBS, a subsidiary of the NatWest Group. It stated it will be ceasing its “banking relationship” with the couple and they need to make preparations “outside of the NatWest group”.
RBS stated it was “not able to discuss this decision with you or provide you with any further information in relation to our decision making”.
The extraordinary resolution – with out clarification – got here within the wake of a scandal that has sparked claims huge title establishments have been indiscriminately closing accounts of shoppers with whom their values don’t align.
Former Brexit Party chief Nigel Farage stated he had been informed by Coutts they now not needed him as a buyer.
The unique financial institution is owned by excessive road big NatWest, which in flip remains to be 38.6 % owned by the British taxpayer after it was bailed out following the 2008 monetary disaster.
Reclaim chief and former actor Laurence Fox has since withdrawn all his cash, save a nominal £100, from NatWest. His get together has additionally been refused an account.
Professor Sawers has been in her job, which offers partly with ladies’s rights and LGBT points, since 2016 and through that point has not been concerned in any controversies.
Mr McKechnie, 69, is a pilot from South Ayrshire. Since the couple have been placed on discover they’ve held talks with a rival financial institution solely to be informed Prof Sawers had a “mark against her name” however got no additional particulars.
Meanwhile, a gender-critical mother and father’ group claimed it was barred from opening an account due to its political opinions.
Metro Bank – launched by American billionaire Vernon Hill in 2010 and the primary new excessive road financial institution within the UK in additional than a century – refused to open a enterprise account for Our Duty, a coalition of greater than 2,000 mother and father who imagine it’s dangerous for transgender youngsters to bear medical transition.
Founder Keith Jordan claimed a supervisor stated the group couldn’t open a enterprise account as a result of “the content of your website conflicts with the culture and ideas we are pushing”.
The not-for-profit group helps mother and father who imagine youngsters popping out as transgender may endure mentally or bodily from transitioning.
The banking scandal has sparked an outpouring of anger after Mr Farage, 59, in contrast Britain to “communist China” and claimed he was being focused for his Brexit views. He stated: “Some of these ridiculous rules and closures have been extended to my immediate family.”
However, high-wealth financial institution Coutts informed the BBC Mr Farage had fallen under its monetary threshold to have an account and it’s thought that he was supplied a brand new account at NatWest which owns Coutts.
Around 10,000 individuals have joined the Facebook group NatWest Closed Down My Account to share comparable tales. The financial institution stated: “Like all UK regulated banking institutions NatWest is subject to legal and regulatory requirements, and we treat compliance with them as a priority.”