he NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose says she “made a serious error of judgment” in discussing Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account with a BBC journalist, but she still has the “full confidence” of the bank’s board.
However, the Bank’s chairman added that the controversy is likely to affect her pay packet for this year.
Rose has come under fire after Coutts, the bank for high-net-worth individuals owned by NatWest, closed Farage’s bank account, which he said was for political reasons.
The BBC’s Simon Jack, citing “people familiar with the decision”, suggested the decision was entirely commercial, as Farage had fallen under the wealth threshold for an account. However, Farage later produced a dossier collected by Coutts’ Wealth Reputational Risk Committee, which compiled evidence on the “significant reputational risks of being associated with him”. It said his positions such as support for Donald Trump and statements seen as sympathetic to Vladimir Putin were “at odds with our position as an inclusive organisation”.
The Telegraph later reported that Rose had sat beside Jack at a charity dinner just before his report, and so questions arose of whether she had leaked confidential or false information about Farage’s account.
Rose said she did not provide any personal financial information about Farage, but that her statements “left Mr Jack with the impression that the decision to close Mr Farage’s accounts was solely a commercial one”.
However, despite pressure to resign, NatWest chair Howard Davies said she still has the board’s full backing.
Davies said: “After careful reflection the Board has concluded that it retains full confidence in Ms Rose as CEO of the bank.
“She has proved, over the last four years to be an outstanding leader of the institution, as demonstrated by our results. The Board therefore believes it is clearly in the interest of all the bank’s shareholders and customers that she continues in post.
“The board is clear that the overall handling of the circumstances surrounding Mr Farage accounts has been unsatisfactory, with serious consequences for the bank. The Board will commission an independent review into the account closure arrangement at Coutts, and the lessons to be learnt from this.”
But Davies added that “the events will be taken into account in decisions on remuneration at the appropriate time”.
Rose said: “I recognise that in my conversations with Simon Jack of the BBC, I made a serious error of judgment in discussing Mr Farage’s relationship with the bank. Given the consequences of this, I want to address the questions that have been raised and set out the substance of the conversations that took place.
“Believing it was public knowledge, I confirmed that Mr Farage was a Coutts customer and that he had been offered a NatWest bank account. Alongside this, I repeated what Mr Farage had already stated, that the bank saw this as a commercial decision.
“I would like to emphasise that in responding to Mr Jack’s questions I did not reveal any personal financial information about Mr Farage. In response to a general question about eligibility criteria required to bank with Coutts and NatWest I said that guidance on both was publicly available on their websites. In doing so, I recognise that I left Mr Jack with the impression that the decision to close Mr Farage’s accounts was solely a commercial one.
“I was not part of the decision-making process to exit Mr Farage. This decision was made by Coutts, and I was informed in April that this was for commercial reasons. At the time of my conversations with Mr Jack, I was not in receipt of the contents of the Coutts Wealth Reputational Risk Committee materials subsequently released by Mr Farage.
“ I have apologised to Mr Farage for the deeply inappropriate language contained in those papers and the Board has commissioned a full independent review into the decision and process to ensure that this cannot happen again.”
