#banks have been locking ordinary people out of accounts for years
Despite all the recent front-page attention given to Nigel #Farage and today’s development – the resignation of NatWest chief executive Alison Rose – there is something else you should know: banks have been quietly closing accounts without giving their customers any reasonable explanation for decades. Setting aside Farage’s politics and personality, and Coutts’s fragile disposition when it comes to people #rich enough but arguably not wholesome enough to utilise their elite banking facilities, it should concern us when banks close our accounts with little or no warning. Ordinary people don’t get the prime minister hollering for justice, and we certainly don’t get apologies from CEOs.
We’re talking about basic bank accounts here: no overdraft facilities, no credit options, just money in and money out and, if you’re lucky, a debit card you can use online. Without even a basic account, life becomes very difficult. Take a recent case of mine: my client’s universal credit had been paid into an account that was then closed without warning. She couldn’t access her own money, and despite a call to the bank to try to resolve matters, she was told nothing could be done. This was money that she needed for food, gas and electricity – the basics of survival. We rang the bank together, threatened to complain, and eventually, she was advised that if she could get to a branch (also not easy) with her photo ID, then she would be given her cash. This was successful.
