An interrogation of one’s affairs by the bank manager, while less painful than interrogation of one’s root canal by the dentist, has seldom been a relaxing appointment.
Now it threatens to rival the Spanish Inquisition. Some banks are stealthily auditing clients’ social media postings and vetting their social circles to weed out undesirable clients. Britain’s government, for one, is considering regulations restricting the growing practice of “de-banking”, since being unable to get a bank account is such a severe crimp on any person’s existence as to threaten their human rights.
It comes to something when the person who might save the developed world from this sinister discrimination is a political gargoyle of the magnitude of Nigel Farage.
The British anti-immigration campaigner and leading Brexit architect makes a most unlikely underdog, but so far has his ex-bank on the ropes.
Farage was publicly indignant to be cancelled by the high-end bank Coutts, then finding no other bank would take his money, either. For context, many’s the person who’d dread finding this particular gurning opinion-spouter next to them on even a short flight. But Coutts banished him because it didn’t agree with his political opinions – or, as the bank put it, he didn’t “align with our values” – which is an ethical slope so slippery as to give even a tobacco company pause.
As annoying and destructive as he can be, Farage is no Vladimir Putin. Neither his actions nor his opinions would trouble the security services. He is guilty of no known illegality.
The wider implications for bank customers worldwide is mind-boggling. Will solvency, an address, an income and no known criminality no longer be sufficient? Might people have to audition, their world view assessed by “sensitivity readers” borrowed from the benighted publishing industry?
Imagine having to shop around, not according to interest rate deals but to which bank might accept a pro-abortion customer or a climate-change sceptic or someone who was pro-Springbok Tour in the early 80s. Much traditional religious dogma would offend Coutts’ values, so perhaps no Catholic, Baptist or Muslim should bother applying?
Admittedly, some soul would cash in by giving all these neo-untouchables a banking option, perhaps under a name like the Bank of All-bastards. Unless these people who don’t “align with our values” are Russian oligarchs, there’s no legal sanction against their money, and the BA-B might do very well. People with awkward opinions are not scarce, and given the extent of the trawl on Farage, may be the overwhelming majority. Is there anyone under 80 who has never posted or “liked” something infelicitous on social media?
Coutts made its position worse by initially giving out that Farage was defenestrated because he was no longer rich enough to meet its criteria, adding embarrassment to his affront.
Secretly, however, the bank had decided it could future-proof its reputation by adopting a set of “inclusive” values allowing it to bin inconveniently unpopular customers. These so far appear unconnected with safeguarding it against financial risk posed by what the sector terms “politically exposed” customers. Documents show staff built their Farage dossier from his political stances and acquaintanceships, not referring to any putative security risk.
The bank’s less-trumpeted attack was on the English language. The documents refer to “exiting him” and “not banking him” any more, which displayed barbarous cruelty to verbs.
High-level inquiries into this banking practice are under way, as new apparent victims speak out – terrible timing for a sector already in the gun over high interest rates. But having given Farage the kind of righteous publicity platform any marginal politician would kill for, the banks’ fitting punishment will be a massive queue of others of his ilk outside their glossy premises, desperate to be similarly refused accounts.
