One feels very little sympathy for account holders at the Co-op Bank. For years this organisation has sought to place itself at arm’s length from other banks by advertising from the high moral ground the fact that it stands for ethical banking. Presumably, then, those holding accounts with it have been happy to support this posturing and to our minds if you can be won over by an oxymoron that couples the word “ethical” with the word “banking”, You deserve everything that follows thereafter.
Among the customers that bank with the Coop are the League against Cruel Sports, the RSPB and the RSPCA. But the relationship has not solely been a financial one, the Coop having regularly sought advice from this triumvirate and loonies like Animal Aid, when framing some of its policies; policies which have seen it refuse accounts to those of whom it’s disapproves, unless of course, like the angling community you are big and have lots of money. In which case the bank has welcomed you with open arms. That’s either because fish don’t have any feeling or the potential for gain has triumphed over principle.
You will want to make up your own minds about that, but where you find this mix of piety and venality you nearly always find hubris too, and it was this that saw the bank founder in trying to buy 600 branches of Verde bank. What has followed in the shape of the revelations about its rent boy using, methamphetamine taking chairman, Paul Flowers, just seems to go with the territory.