ROYAL Bank of Scotland owner NatWest Group has commissioned an independent review into the way the state-backed lender handled the financial affairs of Nigel Farage.
Chairman Sir Howard Davies said the terms of reference had been agreed for an investigation to be led by law firm Travers Smith, which will examine the way in which Mr Farage’s accounts with Coutts, NatWest’s private banking business, were closed.
The review will also scrutinise events which led to information about the former UKIP leader’s financial affairs being leaked to the BBC, and a review of other account closures at Coutts over the last 24 months.
READ MORE: Does Alison Rose deserve sympathy after Farage row sees her lose job?
Details of the review come at the end of a tumultuous week for the bank, which saw the departure of chief executive Dame Alison Rose after it emerged she was the source of a BBC story about the closure of Mr Farage’s Coutts accounts.
Ms Rose initially appeared to retain the support of the NatWest board in a statement on Tuesday, before resigning hours later as political pressure mounted on the bank, which is 39% owned by UK taxpayers. The chief executive of Coutts, Peter Flavel, followed Ms Rose out the exit door yesterday.
Ms Rose has been replaced on an interim basis by Paul Thwaite, chief executive of the bank's commercial and institutional business, for an initial 12 months.
Mr Davies said he had no plans to stand down himself, saying that it had been agreed with the economic secretary, Andrew Griffith, that the search for his successor which began in April should continue as planned. He is due to step down in 2024, by which time he will have served as chairman for nine years.
READ MORE: Boss of Farage scandal bank quits with immediate effect
“Like any chairman, I serve at the shareholders’ behest, but my intention is to continue to lead the board and ensure the bank remains sound, stable, and able to support our 19 million customers,” he said this morning.
“The last few weeks have been a painful period for the bank, and we apologise for the uncertainty created for customers and shareholders during that period.
"We took the view on Tuesday that even though mistakes had been made, it was on balance right to retain Alison Rose as our CEO. But the reaction was such as to convince her and the board that her position was untenable, but that is now in the past.
“None of this means we should lose sight of the success of this bank today. Against sustained, difficult economic headwinds, the group delivered a strong financial performance in the first half of the year.”
NatWest this morning reported an operating profit before tax of nearly £3.6 billion for the first half, compared with £2.6bn for the same period last year, as income climbed to £7.7bn from £6.2bn.
The bank’s net interest margin was 3.2% in the half versus 2.58% in the first half of 2022, signalling the benefit of higher interest rates. But in the second quarter of this year its NIM fell back to 3.13% amid competitive pressure in the mortgage market and changes in its deposit mix, from non-interest bearing to interest bearing balances.
The bank now expects full-year bank NIM of around 3.15%, subject to market conditions including the assumption of a Bank of England base rate of 5.5% from the third quarter until the end of the year.
Shares were down slightly, by 1.18% or 2.84p at 243.6p, around 9.20am.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel