Bank of England in the dust over treatment of Brexit politician Farage

The British company said that NatWest “failed miserably” in its treatment of former politician Nigel Farage. Farage accused the financial services provider of closing his account due to his political views, which are known to be extremely conservative and controversial. According to NatWest, external research has shown that removing Farage as a client is legally permissible, but there are some issues in the decision-making process surrounding this farewell.

“We apologize again to Mr Farage. His experience was not at the level any client would expect. Our job is to prevent this from happening again,” said Chairman Howard Davies.

The months-long case revolves around the unilateral cancellation of Farage’s account with Coutts, a part of NatWest that mainly serves wealthy private clients. The Brexit supporter and fierce immigration critic then submitted internal documents that allegedly showed his political views were partly the reason for the cancellation.

According to NatWest, the independent investigation into the matter not only showed that the arguments in support of stopping Farage’s bill were flawed. The bank also breached the confidentiality of customer information by speaking about Farage to journalists. Former CEO Alison Rose previously apologized and resigned. NatWest is now investigating whether its pay could be cut.

The UK’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, announced its own investigation into NatWest on Friday. The supervisory body checks whether the company has its own procedures for winding up accounts in order.