archive

Earlier this year we asked members of the Customer Union (and Save Our Bank supporters) to send in questions that they'd like us to ask the Co-operative Bank at our regular meeting with them in March. Since we met the bank, the COVID-19 crisis has significantly worsened and this has prompted some further dialogue with the bank.

We assembled - and in some cases amalgamated - a list of questions from members before presenting them to the bank for initial discussion. The bank then went away to consider a more detailed response, and there was a further dialogue.

CEO of the Co-operative Bank, Andrew Bester, has issued a message addressed to all customers.

The message, which you can view here, makes it clear that the Bank will stand behind customers, explains that the bank is getting a lot of calls, and warns about scams. 

The Co-operative Bank has signed up to a code that sets standards to detect and prevent Authorised Push Payment (APP) Scams. It includes a commitment to reimburse customers who lose money through no fault of their own.

This means the Co-op now joins 7 other banks signed up to the 'Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code' and is the first payment service provider to sign up since its launch in May.

In December 2018 Save Our Bank provided the Co-operative Bank with a number of issues and questions raised by our supports in recent months. The Co-operative Bank provided the below responses in January 2019.

Save Our Bank: A member complains that he was told that he could not open an account for a voluntary association because the bank only provides service if it’s a charity or registered company. The voluntary association does have a set of rules.

Save Our Bank Gathering 2018: event report

The 2018 Save Our Bank and Customer Union Gathering will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 24th November at The Federation, a co-operative working space in central Manchester.

We will have representatives from the Coop Bank and Unite The Union to address the meeting.

Sticking with the bank 

When we set up the Save Our Bank campaign in 2013, the rescue deal brokered by The Co-operative Group meant that private investors were taking a majority stake in the bank, removing it from co-operative control. Our fear was that this change in ownership would threaten the bank’s world-leading ethical policy. We thought that would be a big step back.

The Co-operative Bank has released its full results for 2017.

This shows a loss of £140m, compared with £477m the previous year.

(The loss was offset by a gain from recapitalisation and restructuring during the year of £356m)

The CET1 ratio (a measure of how much raw capital the bank has to fall back on if things go bad - a measure regulators are very interested in) went up from 11% to 24.7%.

Prime current account holders (paying in £800/month on average or more) went down from 664,000 to 648,000 - a loss of 16,000.