Ideological Decision? Money Transfer Company Wise Closes Clintel Account

Ideological financial institutions: as a money transfer company Wise client, are you allowed to say "there is no climate emergency"?

Last week, Clintel, an organisation that promotes climate realism, opened an account with Wise, a money transfer company, but it was closed shortly afterwards. Clintel suspects that the reason for the closure may have been their explicit assessment that there is no climate emergency.

Founded in 2019 by geophysics professor emeritus Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok, Climate Intelligence, or Clintel, is an organisation that aims to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy on the economy and the environment. In other words, they promote realistic assessments of climate policy needs and climate change as a whole and publish objective information on the subject. For example, the organisation is behind the distribution of a documentary on climate change by British filmmaker Martin Durkin entitled "Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth)”, which was released in the spring of this year. The film examined the basic tenets of climate alarmism and gave them a damning assessment through interviews with world-renowned and respected scientists.

Clintel's slogan is a simple message: 'There is no climate emergency'. This phrase is emblazoned across the header of the Clintel website. And it is this message that, according to Clintel, may have been the reason for the closing of their account by Wise.

Closed immediately after opening

Last week, Clintel opened an account with Wise in order to benefit from the promise of it being the 'cheapest international money transfer', as the company advertising message states. “However, within hours, our Wise account was closed by Wise for reasons they don't want to give. Welcome in the inclusive 21st century...,” Clintel said in a post on social media.

Evert Doornhof, Clintel's relations manager, explained to Freedom Research that they were not told any reason why the account was closed. Wise had only asked them if they do any business with sanctioned countries, which they do not, and replied in the negative. So Clintel can only speculate as to the reasons for the account closure. “Our thought is that they don’t like our statement ‘There is no climate emergency’,” Doornhof noted, adding that they plan to protest the decision.

Wise: cheapest international money transfer? Not if they don’t like you. Photo: Tech Daily/Unsplash.

Wise's reluctance to give any substantive explanation for the immediate closure of the account can also be seen in the comments at the tail of the same Clintel social media post. A Wise representative posting under the company's account stated that Wise never closes accounts without reason and provided a link to information about the company policies. Behind this link, however, there is only general information that says Wise closes accounts they believe to go against the client’s agreement with them. It is also stated that the customer cannot be told the specific reason why the account was closed.

We also sent some questions regarding the situation to Wise's press contact but did not get a reply.

Financial institutions assessing customer's views

Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, which has grown into a billion-dollar company, is dealing with cross-border money transfers. It was founded in 2011 by Estonians Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus and is headquartered in London. It now operates in 160 countries worldwide and settles in more than 40 currencies. Wise was also listed on the London Stock Exchange in the summer of 2021.

While we were unable to get an answer from the company to the question of whether the company selects its clients in some way by analysing and evaluating their worldview or public messages, we can speculate by analogy that this may be likely.

For example, last summer we wrote about how British politician, now an MP representing Reform UK, Nigel Farage had his bank account closed for no apparent reason at Coutts, a private bank serving wealthy clients. Farage had been a customer of the same banking group since 1980. “I got a phone call a couple of months ago to say we are closing your accounts. I asked why? No reason was given,” he said. “I was told a letter would come which will explain everything, the letter came through and simply said ‘we are closing your accounts’,” he added.

Farage filed a protest, wrote an email to the bank manager, and finally received another reply – explaining that it was “a commercial decision”. After that, Farage tried to open an account with nine other banks but received a negative response from each.

Nigel Farage’s bank account was closed for purely ideological reasons. Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons.

Later, Farage managed to find out that his account had been closed for political-ideological reasons, i.e. because of his views. Farage had been one of the main spokesmen for the campaign to leave the European Union in the UK, he is constantly criticising the country's immigration policy, etc. In internal documents assessing him, and what led to the closure of his account, bank staff even called him a 'xenophobe'.

The Farage case caused a major scandal because the bank initially lied that the reasons for closing Farage's account were commercial, i.e. not related to his views. So the bank eventually had to apologise to Farage and the scandal cost the job of Alison Rose, CEO of the NatWest banking group, the owner of Coutts.

But the Farage case is by no means the only example of financial institutions harassing and closing the accounts of people for views they ideologically disapprove of. This is what has happened in the UK in recent years to customers who have protested, for example, against the banks promoting and advertising LGBTQ issues instead of offering financial services. Similarly, financial intermediaries such as PayPal have closed down the accounts of associations speaking out for freedom of expression, or of parents' organisations that opposed school closures during Covid lockdowns.

Probably the best-known example of accounts being closed for opposing the irrational Covid policy came from Canada in early 2022 during the protests led by truckers in the Canadian capital Ottawa against the strict and unreasonable Covid restrictions imposed in the country. The protesters tried to fund their activities through crowdfunding campaigns. They managed to raise more than $10 million in a short period of time through a GoFundMe campaign, but these funds were never paid out to them.