Should Banks Be Able To Close Accounts If They Do Not Like Your Opinion

Discrimination against GC beliefs such as the forstater case is available in any source you like. Hysteria, etc were all thrown around with regard to those cases, those women just ignored that and preceded via the legal channels available to them. And won.

I agree with you GSM. The public has only heard one side of the story with Metro Bank. It was a telephone conversation apparently, so there's no permanent record.

However, being a nosey so-and-so, I've been looking at the director of OurDuty's Twitter accounts. It wouldn't surprise me if he's busy deleting some posts because they don't give the same impression he's trying to give as a victim of the banks.

He's used violent and threatening language directed at supporters of trans rights, including a quote from Hitler. He's encouraging people to cause a run on "woke" banks and associates with a group which wants to decriminalise hate speech. Apparently, Metro Bank refused Reform a bank account in 2021 (according to Richard Tice). This was before the current furore.

I have no idea what the real reason was for Metro Bank to refuse an account. However, it appears that he wanted a business account, but OurDuty doesn't appear to have any funds. He admits that he's "skint".

I don't think he's telling the whole story.

Yes we must police who people associate with that's very important.

Good work growstuff. According to a poster up thread who supports Our Duty, Metro closed their account. After doing my usual noseying on the Companies House site I suggested it was because they have no funds. Looks like they had more than one good reason not to want their custom then. He sounds an odious individual.

Namsnanny

It is possible to find evidence of all the shenanigans the banks have been up to DaisyAR without 'links'
Imo it is easier to check for once self anyway
This has been happening for 10 years that I know of

It's just taken the public a long time to recognise it is a growing problem.
Enter NF.

I do my own research; probably more than the majority. I was not asking for "links" to gain information but to check why people were saying what they were saying.

In all the time I have been on GN, N &P has always tended to discussion and debate while Chat has been opinion led. I am not asking questions that haven't been asked before.

What is it that you believe is "a growing problem". Have you ever thought that it is one part of the discussion (the OP was quite diverse) that others are just not interested in.

growstuff

I have no idea what the real reason was for Metro Bank to refuse an account. However, it appears that he wanted a business account, but OurDuty doesn't appear to have any funds. He admits that he's "skint".

... skint. Well I can't think of a better reason not to offer someone a business account.

Many, many years ago now, I had a huge overdraft with Barclays. I received a letter (in the days when banks used to write personal letters) which suggested that I "return to the normal arrangement whereby I banked with them rather than they banked with me"... Apparently, this was a standard little repartee that bank managers would use with customers they had met and had a 'relationship' with. Of course, they couldn't make that kind of joke now I suspect.

Germanshepherdsmum

Good work growstuff. According to a poster up thread who supports Our Duty, Metro closed their account. After doing my usual noseying on the Companies House site I suggested it was because they have no funds. Looks like they had more than one good reason not to want their custom then. He sounds an odious individual.

Thank you both. Sometimes these threads verge on, shall we say, less than critical thinking.

Thanks Daisy. Indeed they do. ‘I heard/read it somewhere so it must be true.’

Crikey do you know how you sound.

RBS has closed the account of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with the Royal Bank of Scotland, a subsidiary of the NatWest Group, for 32 years.

RBS refuses to give a reason.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b4d26da6-1aa0-11ee-8198-bf96b6365670?shareToken=d3e0ae4a38561a076b59aa526f2be780
(No paywall)

FarNorth

RBS has closed the account of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with the Royal Bank of Scotland, a subsidiary of the NatWest Group, for 32 years.

RBS refuses to give a reason.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b4d26da6-1aa0-11ee-8198-bf96b6365670?shareToken=d3e0ae4a38561a076b59aa526f2be780
(No paywall)

And ...?

That is dreadful! My very first bank account when I started working was with the Nat West. Very glad I left them years ago.

Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns. I don’t understand why they aren’t concentrating on their main job which is banking instead of all this.

What is dreadful? None of us know why this action has been taken but a bank won’t cease offering banking facilities to anyone without good reason.

Primrose53

That is dreadful! My very first bank account when I started working was with the Nat West. Very glad I left them years ago.

Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns. I don’t understand why they aren’t concentrating on their main job which is banking instead of all this.

They are also employers and if it makes a few staff happier - good. I don't suppose it takes much time, effort or money to issue lanyards.

And it won’t be coming out of your money unless, perhaps, you’re an employee or a shareholder. Which I assume you’re not.

Primrose53

That is dreadful! My very first bank account when I started working was with the Nat West. Very glad I left them years ago.

Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns. I don’t understand why they aren’t concentrating on their main job which is banking instead of all this.

What are you going to do when you find out that all the other banks are doing the same Primrose, because they will?

Galaxy

Yes we must police who people associate with that's very important.

A shiver went down my spine when I read this, then the penny dropped 🤣🤣

growstuff

Primrose53

That is dreadful! My very first bank account when I started working was with the Nat West. Very glad I left them years ago.

Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns. I don’t understand why they aren’t concentrating on their main job which is banking instead of all this.

They are also employers and if it makes a few staff happier - good. I don't suppose it takes much time, effort or money to issue lanyards.

They are also employers and if it makes a few staff happier - good. I don't suppose it takes much time, effort or money to issue lanyards.

Many companies and organisations issue their staff with lanyards don't they, they're pretty run of the mill. I'm sure a happy workforce is a good thing!

It seems the media has locked on to the bank account closures because of the Vicar and Farage (and now the Professor in Scotland) - but maybe there is no sudden spate of closures, it's simply that high-profile individuals are affected. Farage has been Mr Brexit for some considerable time so I don't believe for one minute that the 'establishment' are persecuting him as he implies. According to the BBC, his account with Coutts was closed simply because he didn't hold the right amount of money in it. Although how the BBC know that is a mystery - but it does seem more plausible.

Germanshepherdsmum

What is dreadful? None of us know why this action has been taken but a bank won’t cease offering banking facilities to anyone without good reason.

I had just come back to write just that!

So nice to be thinking along the same lines! 😊

Namsnanny

Galaxy

Yes we must police who people associate with that's very important.

A shiver went down my spine when I read this, then the penny dropped 🤣🤣

The trouble is Galaxy that there are those who don’t know what irony is😁

For those who really think it’s a good thing for banks or any firm, for their employees to identify as a man on Mondays and Tuesdays and as a woman for the rest of the week, then think again.Most of the employees will just ignore this as a tick box exercise am glad to say, but there will be a few who do just that and cause endless confusion amongst the staff.
It’s the scourge of our age, jumping on the trans bandwagon.

Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns

It shouldn't make a jot of difference to customers, in fact, because it's extremely difficult to find a bank which is still open in many places now.
Dozens close by the day.

They will all be luxury apartments or belong to the National Trust or English Heritage before long.

Callistemon21

^Reading this morning that they have said any of their staff can identify at work as, say, a male one day and a female the next. they are issuing them with lanyards stating their preferred pronouns^

It shouldn't make a jot of difference to customers, in fact, because it's extremely difficult to find a bank which is still open in many places now.
Dozens close by the day.

They will all be luxury apartments or belong to the National Trust or English Heritage before long.

It shouldn't make a jot of difference to customers, in fact, because it's extremely difficult to find a bank which is still open in many places now.

My local branch closed - don't worry said one of the staff prior to closure... there's a branch in the next town. Yep, there was - and now they've closed that too.

I don't think it will matter to customers how the bank staff identify because ultimately with all the outsourcing of banking functions and procedures and the surge in technological innovation, you will be quite lucky in the end if you even locate a branch of your bank, let alone see a member of its staff. Banking as we knew it, is finished.

Yes that's true. I understand peoples concerns about the loss of branches but I think its inevitable and something that always happens with progress/new technology etc.

GSM I think you are being very trusting to believe that banks will not take any measure like this without good reason.

Given the average banks capability for cocking up on all kinds of issues, I would have no confidence at all in them not getting things wrong, especially, as by the nature of what they are doing they are not speaking and checking with the person whose bank account is being dropped.

And has been made clear in the media, they are not closing accounts because someone has been found money laundering etc etc, but they have a list of people described as 'politically exposed people', who, as a group, are considered more likely to indulge in illegal banking activities, and not only people in that group but people associated with them are also having bank accounts refused or withdrawn.

Read this article by Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12256943/Its-not-just-Nigel-Farage-daughter-blocked-opening-bank-account.html
While the first third is about Nigel Farage, it then goes onto talk about how his daughter, who has Downes Syndrome, was refused an account, because her grandftaher (the late Nigel Lawson) was deemed a PEP, and of other cases.