Nigel Farage cries persecution, nobody wants to be his banker after ties to Russia

No it's definitely politically motivated. The removal of bank services is politically motivated.

There are far worse people having their money laundered either through offshores , shell corporations or front companies. Whether the money is legitimate or not.

So the banks are now politically opposed to Farage, over Brexit? The Brexit that was voted on 7yrs ago?

But it's not a matter of Left v Right, rather something to do with the North of England?

If it's not a left/right issue but it is now 7yrs after Farage's only ever political success that somehow, for some reason a political issue? Why is it now that to date 9 banks have refused Farage additional services? Rather than when he was actually politically active?

Amusing that you hang on his claim of political motivation for his predicament? When he hasn't provided a whit of evidence of such.

The idea that 9(NINE!) banks now have refused to do business with Farage because of Brexit is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

Did they all get together and decide to just hold him responsible? While everyone in government who actually applied the type of Brexit we got gets to keep their accounts? Even David Davis who piped up today was more involved than Nige.

It’s hilariously arrogant of himself to think that a.) He’s solely responsible for Brexit and b.) large capital institutions care enough about him to try and force him out of the country by cutting off his banking, regulatory consequences be damned.

Strange bank you deal with, never had the same experience withdrawing or doing a transfer to another account for large sums.

As for large deposits, they are covered by the fact that they are reported to Revenue and it isn't like Revenue can't take money if they decide to until you can prove where it came from and any tax liability has been paid.

Do you have any proof that he is up to anything illegal? No, nothing?

The UK (or England specifically) is one of the most right wing countries in Europe. If political motivation was the issue, half the people in British public life and politics would see their bank accounts closed down.

People need other banking services other than chequeing. He would need much more as he would be dealing with investments.

I seriously doubt he would risk his own personal wealth with the stock market about to crash in less than two weeks.

Never explain with a conspiracy theory that which can be explained without one. It just makes you look paranoid.

Let’s look at the facts that are publicly known:

1. UK has quite sophisticated and detailed money-laundering legislation. Complying with this is a pain for banks, but also very important to them; there are potentially big financial, regulatory and reputational harms if they don’t comply.

2. So banks mostly have clear internal rules that are systematically applied (i.e. they don't just have rules; they have systems and mechanisms to apply them) to try to ensure no breach of money laundering laws. Banks would rather err on the side of treating customers more strictly than required, pissing off customers, than less strictly, pissing off the regulator.

3. The legislation defines a class of “politically exposed person” (PEP) who are seen to be especially exposed to corruption — not because they are dodgy people, but because they are in sensitive positions. People are much more likely to try to corrupt them than they are likely to try to corrupt you or me. So banks are required to apply special scrutiny to PEPs.

4. Nigel Farage is a PEP — he is the sole owner and controller of Reform UK Party Ltd. He appoints the party officers, hires and fires the staff, determines the party policies, everything. Literally no-one else in the party has a vote on anything. Controlling a political party puts him squarely within the legal definition of PEP, so he is going to attract enhanced scrutiny from his bank, which will err on the side of caution. 

5. Banks do not collect data about their customer’s opinions. Why would they? And, even if they wanted to, how would they? But they do collect data — lots of it — about their transactions, sources of funds, destinations of transfers, patterns, etc. That data feeds directly into the systems they have in place for compliance with the money-laundering legislation. 

6. It seems that it’s Farage's business accounts that have triggered the red flags — he has said that his bank has told him they are willing to provide personal banking services to him, but not business banking services. 

7. The money laundering regulations were toughened from 1 April this year to extend scrutiny of transactions with overseas entities, and with trusts. (Trusts are often opaque — it’s hard to know who is behind them — so they are often used to conceal the identity of transaction parties.) Farage says his bank told him three months ago that they wanted him to close his accounts. The coincidence of timing may not, in fact, be a coincidence; odds are that it's these latest changes that are at the bottom of his problem.

8. If Farage’s business transactions were really alarming, the bank would be legally obliged to refer the matter to the National Crime Agency. And maybe they did refer — we don’t know. If the NCA were really concerned, they might seek an account freezing order. We do know that the NCA hasn’t sought an account freezing order. (If they had, Farage couldn’t close his accounts and so the bank wouldn’t be asking him to.)

9. So, Farage’s accounts haven’t been frozen, but his bank has asked him to take his business banking elsewhere. What this means is that Farage's business banking activities are outside the bank's risk appetite, so the don’t want to be his bankers any more. 

10. It isn’t uncommon for banks to take this view. It’s got nothing to do with the customer’s political opinions, and all to do with who they do business with, or where they do business, and the source/destination of money and how that impacts the bank’s risk appetite. There’s no reason at all to think that it’s any different in Farage’s case. It's also not uncommon, if your bank has given you the heave, for other banks to be uninterested in taking you on; they'll have exactly the same risk issues. (This doesn't mean you can't get banking at all; just that you will need to go to a smaller institution with a different risk tolerance and, probably, higher costs.)

11. Typical reasons for getting a “take your business elsewhere” message from your bank like this would be:

- Suspicion of money-laundering/illegal activity: unusual transactions, large sums that don’t match typical behaviour and that you fail to explain, etc.

- Failure to comply with know-your-customer/anti-money-laundering regulations: e.g. you fail to provide documents or information the bank asks for.

- Reputational risk: Your account activity makes the bank afraid that you will be involved in a financial scandal of some kind, and they don’t want to be there when that happens.

- Regulatory alert: regulators wills sometimes warn banks that a customer has come to the attention (in a bad way) of regulators in another country for e.g. sanctions-busting or corruption in that country. (Unlikely, to my lasting regret, that this has happened for Farage.) 

- Business risk: if your account activity constantly skirts the borders of what triggers the banks control systems, arouses suspicion and requires human intervention, it simply becomes troublesome and expensive for the bank to maintain your account; they just have to spend too much time monitoring it and engaging with you to address their concerns. 

12. Typically, the bank doesn't tell you exactly which of these has triggered their decision. But, typically, you have a pretty shrewd idea, because you know what issues the bank has been raising with you, what information or documents they wanted, what explanations they sought, etc.

13. We don’t know which of these is Farage’s particular problem, but none of them would look like especially good news for him, which is why he would be anxious to position the whole thing as political victimisation, unlikely as that may be.

Derek Blythe would be one. Him and his wife's bank account were closed, no reason given.