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Nigel Farage, former Brexit party leader, has revealed that his bank accounts are about to be closed down by the elite bank Coutts and that he is now being offered a standard personal account at NatWest instead.
Farage is consulting lawyers about his treatment by Coutts, once known as “the Queen’s bank”, and claims it is “panicking” after he said he was being driven out of the UK by a pro-Remain banking establishment.
Coutts and NatWest are part of the same banking group, but Farage said the offer of a NatWest personal account was of no use to him because it did not offer currency services — he carries out media and speaking engagements abroad, notably in the US.
Farage, also the former leader of the pro-Brexit UK Independence party, told the Financial Times that an official from Coutts rang him last Thursday at 6.55pm after he threatened to go public on his GB News show about his treatment.
He claims Coutts has not told him why it was closing down his personal and business accounts at the bank. “They said I could have a personal account at NatWest and they’d think about a business account.”
He added: “Are they backtracking? Yes. They are panicking.” NatWest has been approached for comment.
One industry insider suggested Coutts was seeking to close down Farage’s accounts because he had redeemed his mortgage with the bank, so he no longer met the economic criteria for having accounts.
“You seem to know more than me,” Farage told the FT. He confirmed he had paid off his Coutts mortgage early, but said he had not initially had a mortgage when he became a customer of the bank.
Farage believes the more likely reason for the closure of his Coutts bank accounts is that he is on a list of “politically exposed people”, a regulatory regime that requires banks to carry out extra checks on elected politicians and their families in case they are open to foreign bribery.
He said his lawyers had made “special access requests” to international ratings bodies and had established that both he and his company had PEP status.
“I asked Coutts about this on Thursday and they said they did not think I had PEP status,” he said. “Very clearly I do.”
The government has passed a law to create a less onerous regime of checks by banks for domestic customers who are PEPs, but it has not yet come into force.
Last week Farage said in a Twitter video that his accounts were being closed down by a “prestigious” bank, without naming Coutts, and said seven other banks had declined to offer him an account.
Farage said on Tuesday he had previously banked with NatWest for 30 years but it had told him it could not provide him with currency services — he was previously paid in euros as a member of the European parliament — and suggested he move to Coutts.