Farage Says Coutts Is Offering To Keep His Accounts Open

Coutts has offered to reinstate Nigel Farage's personal and business bank accounts, the former Ukip politician has claimed.

Mr Farage said the new boss of Coutts had written to him to say he could keep the accounts.

Coutts and its parent company NatWest have been embroiled in a row with Mr Farage, which last week led to resignations at the top of both banks.

NatWest said it could not comment on individual customers.

Speaking on his GB News programme, Mr Farage said the interim chief executive of Coutts, Mohammad Kamal Syed, had made the offer to continue banking with them.

"He has written to me to say I can keep both my personal and my business accounts," Mr Farage said.

"And that's good and I thank him for it."

Mr Farage did not say whether he planned to accept the offer to stay with Coutts, which offers services exclusively to wealthy clients.

The former MEP is still on the war-path against Coutts - which he says decided to close his accounts because it did not like his political views.

Mr Farage has shared documents which show his political views were discussed by the bank, along with his financial situation, before it decided to close his accounts.

Mr Farage said he had suffered "enormous harm" from the controversy around his banking arrangements.

"It has taken up a huge amount of my time and it has cost me, so far, quite a lot of money in legal fees so I have today sent a legal litigation letter to Coutts where I want some full apologies, I want some compensation for my costs, but - more important than all of that - I want a face-to-face meeting with the bank's bosses.

He added he wanted to find out how many other customers had had their accounts closed over their political opinions.

Mr Farage this week launched a website which he said would help individuals and small businesses who had faced "unjust treatment" from banks, particularly if their accounts had been closed abruptly.

Dame Alison Rose, chief executive of NatWest Group, quit last week, after saying she had made a "serious error of judgment" in speaking to a BBC journalist about Mr Farage's Coutts account.

Peter Flavel, the boss of the NatWest-owned private bank for the wealthy, Coutts, also quit.