The number of people being debanked has increased tenfold in less than a decade, with anti-Debanking campaigner Nigel Farage calling the new-year statistics “appalling”, it is reported.
An estimated 450,000 customers were debanked in the United Kingdom in the 2024-25 year, reports The Daily Telegraph, showing the enormous growth in the debanking crisis from the comparatively modest 45,000 customers closed in 2016-17.
The rate of debanking has been steadily growing for years except for a slight fall in 2022-23, the period in which Nigel Farage’s own debanking saw the issue hit the headlines in a major way for the first time.
The Telegraph report states Mr Farage called the figures “appalling” and said the rapid growth is down to European Union laws, still imposed in Britain thanks to its government’s light-touch approach to Brexit, which incentivises banks to “close accounts over unusual transactions”.
Also cited was a Prosperity Institute spokesman who said the figures showed the “debanking epidemic remains a present and real danger” for Britons. They said: “Preventing crime sounds noble, but nobody believes another 453,000 people are financial criminals, on top of the 408,000 in 2024, and 317,000 in 2023”.
Nigel Farage launched a crusade against timid banks and the laws that direct their behaviour after his long-term bank withdrew their services with zero notice in 2023. Coutts, a private bank owned by the Natwest Group, initially insisted the decision to debank Farage had been a purely commercial decision — which is legal — but it was later proven the decision had been purely political, which is not.
Leaked internal Natwest memos showed staff gloated and boasted over having debanked Mr Farage, calling him “vile”, “awful”, and a Russian asset.
Mr Farage said then: “The establishment are trying to force me out of the UK by closing my bank accounts… If they can do it to me, they can do it to you too”.
The scandal snowballed until the CEO of the bank, a senior and closely establishment-linked financial professional, was forced to resign over the matter, although she quickly found a new city role.
Farage’s Reform UK party enjoyed a further small victory at the end of 2025, when for the first time is was able to open an account at a normal, mainstream bank, having been denied services by all except niche, expensive boutique banking houses to that point. Mr Farage hailed the development, stating: “this is an important moment for Reform UK. It shows just how far we have come as a party and we look forward to a fruitful and positive partnership with Lloyds”.
Read the full article here