The UK’s Treasury will ask the leaders of 19 banks and fintechs, including NatWest Group Plc, Lloyds, HSBC Holdings Plc and Barclays, to explain how they’ll ensure that customers aren’t “de-banked” for exercising free speech following a dust-up with Nigel Farage, the Financial Times reported.
The FT said Andrew Griffith, economic secretary to the Treasury, will write to the banks Monday after Farage, one of the most prominent politicians behind the UK’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union, said Coutts was planning to close his account over his personal views. Coutts is a UK bank for the wealthy owned by NatWest.
The banks will be asked to show how they’ll ensure “that customers can access payment accounts without fear of being de-banked for their lawful expression,” the FT said, citing a draft of the letter.
Farage said last week he felt embarrassed when he was told that Coutts was planning to close his account. He said an unchallenged decision would mean the UK is no different than a “Chinese Communist-style social credit system.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has described Coutts’ decision on Twitter as “wrong,” and the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk supported that with “Hear! Hear!”
