Go back to the basics of banking, says RUTH SUNDERLAND
- Feud between Coutts and Nigel Farage wasn’t just about politics or awake capitalism
- The core is terrible customer service
- Any private banker worth his or her salt should massage the client’s ego
With private banking, the clue is in the name. Discreet and respectful personal relationships with customers are the raison d’être of these oak-panelled establishments that pander to the wealthy.
The feud between Coutts and Nigel Farage isn’t just about politics or awake capitalism. The core is terrible customer service.
The whole debacle could probably have been avoided if Coutts’ private bankers, whose forte is forging special relationships, had shown even an ounce of the silky client management skills in which they are supposed to be adept.
If Farage was no longer wanted as a client for commercial reasons – as Coutts’ owner NatWest claims – it should have been handled with tact and respect.
Private bankers should not be the thought police, and they should be diplomats as well as calculators. Instead of building a childish and half-baked file, the points of interest should have been discussed in a personal conversation in a professional context.
Take a quick look: Private bankers shouldn’t be the thought police, and they should be diplomats as well as mathematicians
Every customer of a private bank owes that level of courtesy. And any private banker worth his or her salt should be a practitioner of the art of massaging clients’ egos.
If necessary, they should be able to usher a client from the super-rich section of the bank into the mass-affluent division without causing a terrible offense.
Equally disturbing is the insinuation that Dame Alison Rose, NatWest’s CEO, may have informed the media that Farage was “not rich enough.” We may never get to the bottom of who said what to whom, but this is very serious: it is a fundamental principle of banking that customers have an absolute right to confidentiality.
You can imagine the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, MPs from the Treasury Committee and NatWest chairman Sir Howard Davies will have some questions on this subject. The argument is also a graphic lesson on how so-called ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues can be deployed in the culture wars.
This is already typical of the landscape in the US, where right-wing Republicans have lashed out against state pension funds refusing to invest in fossil fuels.
Lending money and providing financial services is not politically neutral and banks often get it all wrong.
In the past, it was usually because they were willing to give in to oppressive regimes, rather than an overabundance of political correctness. In the 1970s and 1980s, protesters targeted Barclays for his involvement in apartheid South Africa.
HSBC was accused earlier this year by MPs of mistreating customers who fled China after cracking down on democracy to curry favor with Beijing.
Given their track record, banks may seem unlikely hotbeds of wakery. But compared to some of the more important jobs they’re supposed to be doing, plastering the windows with rainbow flags is easy.
Dame Alison and her colleagues should focus on helping clients through the cost of living crisis. Banks should be shutting down accounts that receive the proceeds of fraud, not chasing people they dislike politics. Chief executives should focus their attention on issues such as competition with the fintechs and tackling money laundering, for which NatWest received its first-ever criminal conviction and fine of £265 million.
It’s a pity that Dame Alison was caught in this scandal as she has shown all signs of creating a responsible and socially beneficial bank after the years of Fred Goodwin. For her, this is a moment of danger.