Everyone lost in the Coutts scandal... apart from Farage

Alison Rose resigned as Natwest chief after a row involving the private bank and the ex-Ukip leader. Chris Blackhurst looks back on the biggest business story of the last year

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My editor loves setting challenges. He's asked for one standout City story of the year, a tale that defines 2023.

Well, in 12 months devoid of spectacular deals, with a sluggish market and an economy that at best was flat, it’s not easy. There were few OMG moments, no epic fraud trials (not in the UK anyway) that were ground-shaking. But there was one episode that had everything. It was a veritable Christmas pudding of an affair, containing every ingredient possible.

This was the defenestration of Alison Rose. There she was, credited with doing a great job running NatWest, hailed as an excellent banker and held up as Britain’s foremost female senior executive. Then, in rapid time, she was gone. Not only that but Rose was also stripped of £7.6m due to her share awards and bonuses.

To recap, a terrible fuss, orchestrated by Nigel Farage, ensued when the Brexit campaigner turned chat show host, had his account at Coutts, the private bank owned by NatWest, closed. He was offered banking at NatWest instead. A furious Farage said he was being persecuted for his political views, that he’d been refused accounts at seven other UK banks.

With Farage on the warpath, Rose, CEO of NatWest, attended a charity dinner and sat next to Simon Jack, the business editor for BBC News. The following day Jack published an article saying Coutts had ditched Farage for commercial reasons.