I sacked Coutts. It was a hard decision. I had been a member for 41 years. But I had to leave when the bank went wrong.
I joined in 1972. The manager of Coutts’ Norwich office, tucked away in Tombland, wore a frock coat, wing collar and cravat. He signed me in with his quill pen. Mr Masters then visited me at home, met my wife, opened an account for her and promised one for our baby daughter when she grew up.
It was that sort of bank, friendly but correct. We were encouraged to think of ourselves as members of a nice club, not mere customers.
Coutts didn’t indulge in gimmicks. The only “welcome gift” was a brown leather wallet for the cheque book.
I had switched banks, from Lloyds, because my accountant said Coutts were “good lenders”. I never borrowed a penny and kept my account in credit.
You only had to maintain a balance of £1,000 for free banking, though that was later raised to £3,000. The nonsense about having to be worth £1 million came later as the bank lost its way.
I was invited to lunch in one of the “Pepper Pot” turrets decorating the façade of Coutts’ historic HQ in The Strand. The chairman was Sir Ewen Fergussson, the former Scotland rugby international whose size 14 feet qualified him to have his shoes made on the NHS, which he proudly wore.
Things went wrong after the financial crisis of 2007-8.
Coutts’ owner, NatWest, was bailed out by the government and is still 39% owned by us, the tax payers.
I then received a gilt-edged invitation from Coutts to the louche Groucho Club in Soho. I could hardly believe it. I went to make sure it was not a spoof. The new Swiss CEO had decided that Britain’s “Old Money” was not the future.
He was after newly rich clients - rock stars, television personalities, showbiz names. At the same time, he accelerated branch closures; Cavendish Square, Hanover Square and Mount Street closed in London’s West End.
I complained. He smiled and suggested I use the NatWest branch in Berkeley Square. That was it. I didn’t join the royal bankers to be told to use what was effectively a nationalised bank.
It’s much worse now watching what was “my” bank behaving like the Stasi, the East German Secret Police, cancelling customers whose views and beliefs it does not like. It is insufferable.
The late Queen would be appalled to know her bank was discriminating against customers in good standing, without even informing them what was going on and why. It is simply un-British.
I have been on Nigel Farage’s show on GBNews seven times, discussing royal stories. My views on Brexit are the opposite of Nigel’s but I would have gone to Coutts’ HQ to see the chairman, were I still with the bank, to demand an end to this pernicious persecution of clients.
But, sensing that things were going wrong, I left ten years ago and joined Butterfield Bank of Bermuda. I have since received several invitations to return to Coutts. I declined them all and I am certainly not going back now, not until it regains its common sense and decency.
How different things are now from the morning a new traffic warden approached a royal car parked outside Coutts in the Strand while the Queen’s financial comptroller was inside cashing a cheque.
“You can put your book away, young man,” said the royal chauffeur. “It’s not called ‘the Queen’s Highway’ for nothing”.
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