Ethical credentials in doubt at the Co-op Bank

Reader Angie Mindel says she can no longer see the Co-operative Bank as an ethical alternative to high street lenders. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

In your article on Niall Booker’s pay package (Co-op Bank defends chief’s £3.85m pay, Financial, 2 April) you state that the Co-op Bank presents itself as an ethical alternative to the big high street lenders. However, many of us who banked with Co-op for precisely that reason have sadly closed our personal accounts in the past few months. The Co-op Bank has lost its ethical credentials by closing several charity and “solidarity” accounts, including Palestine Solidarity, for the stated reason of not meeting its “risk appetite”.

Unfortunately, the bank no longer meets my human rights support or ethical appetite. To see the pay award given to its chief executive shows what happens to ethics under hedge fund management.
Angie Mindel
Nottingham

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