NatWest's chief executive, Dame Alison Rose, resigned from her position after acknowledging that she made a "serious error of judgment" when she spoke to a BBC journalist about the reasons for closing former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage's bank accounts.
The closure of all Farage's accounts at Coutts - one of NatWest's subsidiary banks - sparked a great deal of public and political scrutiny. Farage alleged that his relationship with Donald Trump and his campaign in favor of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union were the reasons why the entity arbitrarily closed his accounts.
The story of the closure of Farage's accounts
BBC published an article stating, according to anonymous sources at the time, that Farage's bank accounts had been closed for falling "below the wealth limit." However, a 36-page document obtained by the ex-politician through a request for access to his private information explains that Brexit was mentioned 30 times. Russia was mentioned 22 times with a series of articles attempting to link him to the country. Donald Trump was mentioned 14 times.
Farage also pointed out that the bank's internal document shows that he met the financial criteria to keep the account active.
Rose acknowledged that she had spoken to BBC Business Editor Simon Jack about Farage's "relationship with the bank" (presumably what she said in the discussion was part of the first article published by the media outlet). Despite this, the former director indicated that she had not disclosed any personal information about Farage in her conversations and that she had merely left the journalist "with the impression that the decision to close Mr. Farage's accounts was purely commercial."
After the interview with BBC where she acknowledged that she made a mistake by sharing information about Farage's accounts with Jack, she decided to resign from her position. According to a company statement, the bank's head of commercial and institutional business, Paul Thwaite, will take her place for one year.
