Co-op Bank, which was given a £1.5 billion bail-out largely from hedge funds, has relaunched its ethical policy widening the type of companies it will not do business with.
But at the same time, the bank — substantially divorced from the Co-op Group after a drugs scandal around its former chairman, Methodist preacher Paul Flowers — said it has no plans to drop its ads depicting a male torso being tattooed with the words “ethics & values”.
It turned out the tattoos were fake.
Chief executive Niall Booker said: “Our values and ethics have always been an important factor.”
In the first revision to its policy since 2009, Co-op Bank said it would not finance any companies involved in irresponsible gambling, payday loans and those who “do not pay tax in the UK or elsewhere”.
Sources said mainstream gaming companies such as William Hill and Ladbrokes did not come into the first category and that Co-op Bank does not lend to Amazon, Starbucks or Google who have hit the headlines for their tiny UK tax bills.
