Dame Alison Rose, the head of the banking group that includes Coutts, has admitted to leaked information about Nigel Farage to the BBC.
The chief executive of NatWest Group said she had made a "serious error of judgment" but insisted she had not revealed any "personal financial information" about the former Ukip leader to the corporation's business editor Simon Jack.
She said she had responded generally to a question about "eligibility criteria required to bank with Coutts and NatWest."
That led to the BBC wrongly reporting that the Brexiteer lost his account with the exclusive Coutts bank because he had fallen below the £1m borrowing threshold for maintaining his account at the exclusive private bank.
READ MORE: Bank boss apologises to Farage for 'deeply inappropriate' action
NatWest and Coutts have been under growing pressure in recent days after Mr Farage used a subject access review to obtain a dossier about his account closure.
It revealed he had been stripped of his account partly because of his political views, wi.th the bank citing his ties to US President Donald Trump and tennis player Novak Djokovic, who is opposed to Covid vaccinations,
The bank also flagged concerns about Mr Farage being “xenophobic and racist” before concluding his views “did not align” with its values in a meeting last November.
The bank, which changed its name to NatWest from Royal Bank of Scotland at parent group level in 2020, is 39% owned by the taxpayer after a government bailout during the financial crisis.
READ MORE: BBC apologises to Farage over 'inaccurate' Coutts bank account story
Earlier this week, the BBC also apologised to Mr Farage, with Mr Jack saying he had reported information from a “trusted and senior source” that “turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate”.
In a statement released just before 6pm on Tuesday, Dame Alison said: “I recognise that in my conversations with Simon Jack of the BBC, I made a serious error of judgment in discussing Mr Farage’s relationship with the bank.
“Given the consequences of this, I want to address the questions that have been raised and set out the substance of the conversations that took place.
“Believing it was public knowledge, I confirmed that Mr Farage was a Coutts customer and that he had been offered a NatWest bank account. Alongside this, I repeated what Mr Farage had already stated, that the bank saw this as a commercial decision.
“I would like to emphasise that in responding to Mr Jack’s questions I did not reveal any personal financial information about Mr Farage.
“In response to a general question about eligibility criteria required to bank with Coutts and NatWest I said that guidance on both was publicly available on their websites. In doing so, I recognise that I left Mr Jack with the impression that the decision to close Mr Farage’s accounts was solely a commercial one.”
The bank boss said she was not part of the "decision-making process to exit Mr Farage."
She said at the time of her conversations with the BBC reporter she was "not in receipt of the contents of the Coutts Wealth Reputational Risk Committee materials subsequently released by Mr Farage."
She added: “I have apologised to Mr Farage for the deeply inappropriate language contained in those papers and the board has commissioned a full independent review into the decision and process to ensure that this cannot happen again.
“Put simply, I was wrong to respond to any question raised by the BBC about this case. I want to extend my sincere apologies to Mr Farage for the personal hurt this has caused him and I have written to him today."
READ MORE: KEVIN MCKENNA'S DIARY: You don't have to like Nigel Farage to admit he's the victim this time
Howard Davies, chairman of the NatWest Group, said the board “retains full confidence” in Dame Alison.
He said: “As she recognises, she should not have spoken in the way she did. This was a regrettable error of judgement on her part. The events will be taken into account in decisions on remuneration at the appropriate time.
“However, after careful reflection the board has concluded that it retains full confidence in Ms Rose as CEO of the bank.”
NatWest said it will commission an independent review into the closure.
The row has prompted Tory City minister Andrew Griffith to summon bank chiefs for a meeting to discuss how customers can be protected from “being de-banked”.
He wrote to the chief executives of around 20 banks, building societies and digital finance firms warning that anti-corruption regulations around politically exposed persons were “being applied in a disproportionate manner by some financial institutions”.
He said the UK Government would “take all action necessary” to crack down on accounts being closed in response to customers’ political views.
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