Loved Co-op Bank? It may be time to... DIVORCE

MARRIED couples are more likely to divorce than switch banks. But sometimes events outside a customer’s control make them reassess their choice of financial partner.

The mounting doubts over the independent future of the Co-operative Bank proved the last straw for me and my husband. We have finally ended our 22-year relationship with the bank.

Despite rumours that a wellfunded competitor, Virgin Money, is preparing a bid for the Co-op Bank, we are happy to have moved.

If Virgin or another rival snaps it up, that might improve the Co-op’s poor customer service and deliver much-needed financial stability.

But there are now better current accounts on offer that score higher on the ethical values that attracted me and my husband Paul to the bank in the first place.

We will leave 1.4million current account holders to make their own decision about the troubled business, which reported a £477million annual loss last month and was put up for sale in February.

It is also under intense scrutiny by the Bank of England, with plans in place in case it fails.

The 145-year-old bank maintains that it is ‘very much business as usual’ for customers, whom it describes as ‘very loyal’. It is even trying to attract new ones with a £110 payment to those who transfer their current account to the bank using the seven-day Current Account Switching Service.

But despite these reassurances, some experts believe that more customers will be heading for the door. Charlotte Nelson at financial data company Moneyfacts says: ‘The bank’s uncertain future may well be the catalyst for customers to see if there are better bank deals out there.’

Many joined the bank because of its ethical stance. It still claims strong values, but this is harder for customers to believe since profitdriven hedge funds took a majority stake in October 2013.

THAT followed the discovery of a £1.5 billion black hole in the bank’s finances and revelations in The Mail on Sunday about the lifestyle of its then chairman, Reverend Paul Flowers, who was seen buying crystal meth and other drugs.

Until 2013, the bank was owned by the Co-operative Group. But last week the group valued its remaining 20 per cent stake in the bank at zero in its accounts for 2016 in what it called ‘prudential accounting’.

A spokesman for the bank says its ethical values, which include not providing banking services to oppressive regimes or tax evaders, remain as strong as ever.

But Move Your Money, a website that scores banks and building societies on their ethics, says the change of ownership raises questions over its ethical label.

Move Your Money give Co-op Bank 51 per cent for ethics, compared with 64 per cent for Nationwide Building Society, and 98 per cent for smaller building societies such as Darlington, Ipswich and Loughborough. Ecology Building Society is top of the list with a score of 100, while the highest scoring bank is Triodos at 92 per cent.

Rebecca O’Connor writes the ethical finance blog Good With Money. She says: ‘Luckily, there are plenty