Halifax has come under fire this week following a decision to make a subtle change to their staff name badges. The bank has now introduced pronouns onto the name tags of each of its employees.
A picture shared by Halifax on Twitter showed an employee with 'she', 'her' and 'hers' written underneath her name 'Gemma', alongside the caption "Pronouns matter. #ItsAPeopleThing."
But after some people hit out at the controversial move, the bank caused a stir after telling its customers that they are free to close their accounts down if they disagree with their values.
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Howard Brown, who is best known for being the all-singing all-dancing face of Halifax's catchy adverts in the noughties, has since responded amid the bank's row with customers, reports Yorkshire Live.
Although he has been off the radar for a while and no longer works for Halifax, the 55-year-old has given his verdict after a member of the bank's social media team told customers they can close down their accounts if they don't like the companies change.
Brown described the attitude towards customers as ‘shocking, wrong and disappointing' and told the Daily Mail that he wouldn’t want to wear a pronoun badge if he still worked for the bank.
The image sparked a negative response from some social media users who have said that the bank is unnecessarily ‘virtue signalling’.
When furious clients complained, they were given short shrift by the employee in charge of Halifax’s official Twitter account, who wrote that the bank strives for ‘inclusion’ and ‘equality’, the spokesperson tweeted: "If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account."
A staggering number of people protested on social media which has resulted in Halifax reportedly loosing in excess of £450,000 in investment accounts and savings after customers closed their accounts following the row.
Hundreds claimed they will boycott the bank with many saying they have closed their accounts. Others have cut up their credit cards or getting rid of insurance policies.
John Mothersdale, commented on a Yorkshire Live post regarding the news, he said: "Glad I don’t have an account with them then…saves me a job."
Allen Bell added: "Strikes me as in trying to make people more comfortable, they have managed to make people more uncomfortable. If I had an account with them I would immediately close it not because of the badge changing, but because they are supposed to be looking after people's money not their gender."
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