Arron Fraser Andrew Banks (born 1966) is a British businessman and political donor. He was the co-founder (with Richard Tice) of the Leave.EU campaign and one of the largest donors to the UK Independence Party (UKIP), helping Nigel Farage's campaign for Brexit.
In November 2018 the National Crime Agency opened an investigation into Banks following concerns raised over the source of his funding. In September 2019, the NCA dropped its investigation into Banks and Leave.EU, finding "no evidence that any criminal offences have been committed."
Banks was reported to have had multiple meetings with Russian embassy officials as well as being offered business opportunities in Russia in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.- - "Long Read: The Arron Banks allegations", Channel Four News, 27 July 2018 He denied any wrongdoing and said: "There was no Russian money and no interference of any type." In May 2020, the Electoral Commission, who had referred Banks to the NCA for investigation of these allegations, conceded Banks did not break electoral law during the 2016 EU referendum campaign. Banks said he had been "completely vindicated" after reaching a settlement with the Electoral Commission.
In the 2025 West of England mayoral election, Banks was Reform UK's candidate to become the directly-elected mayor of the West of England Combined Authority, losing narrowly to the winning Labour candidate, Helen Godwin.
Early life Banks was born in Cheshire, England, and raised by his mother in Basingstoke, Hampshire; his father worked as a sugar plantation manager in various African countries. From the age of 13 he attended a boarding school in Berkshire called Crookham Court, before being expelled for "an accumulation of offences", including the sale of lead stolen from the roofs of school buildings, and "high-spirited bad behaviour". He then attended St Bartholomew's School in Newbury but was expelled again. He returned to Basingstoke, where he sold paintings, vacuum cleaners, and then houses.
Business career Banks was offered a junior job at the insurance market of Lloyd's of London. According to The Guardian, by the age of 27, he was running a division of Norwich Union. The article also claims that he spent a year working for Berkshire Hathaway, the investment company of Warren Buffett. However, in another investigation in 2017, both Norwich Union and Warren Buffett reject Banks' claim that he worked for them. Then, from an office above a bakery in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, Banks started a motorcycle insurance broker, Motorcycle Direct, and within a few years the company was big enough to sell for "a few million". He used the money to found Commercial Vehicle Direct about which he says "within a very short period we were the largest van insurance company in the country".
Over seven years, along with Australian business partner John Gannon, Banks expanded the van insurance business to become Group Direct Limited, and in 2008 the company floated by means of a reverse takeover as Brightside Group. He was its CEO from June 2011 to June 2012, at which time the company was listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM). After Banks was dismissed from the company in 2012, he sold £6m worth of the shares in 2013, and received significantly more when the investment firm AnaCap Financial Partners bought Brightside the following year.
Banks was the chief executive (CEO) of Southern Rock Insurance Company in 2014, which underwrites insurance policies for the website GoSkippy.com, founded by Banks. After Banks' departure, Brightside took legal action against him, alleging he used confidential information in setting up GoSkippy.com six months later. There were also legal actions between Southern Rock and Brightside.
Banks was CEO of AIM-listed Manx Financial Group from April 2008 to February 2009. The Guardian reported in 2014 that Companies House records appeared to show that Banks had set up 37 different companies using slight variations of his name. The names used by Banks were Aron Fraser Andrew Banks, Arron Andrew Fraser Banks, Arron Fraser Andrew Banks and Arron Banks. The profiles for the first three names all used the same date of birth but registered different lists of companies. When asked by The Guardian about this in 2014, he declined to answer questions on the topic.
Banks also owns Eldon Insurance, whose CEO Elizabeth Bilney was also in charge at Leave.EU. The company's profits leapt to £16.7m for the first half of 2017 after recording a £284,000 profit in 2015 and a loss of £22,500 in 2016 despite a 40% increase in revenue. Banks said that Eldon's business had been transformed by the same AI technology used in the Brexit campaign. The offshore holding company that controls Eldon Insurance is ICS Risk Solutions, which funds many of Banks' activities and has paid over £77m between 2015 and 2018 to prop up Southern Rock after Gibraltarian regulators found the business to be trading while technically insolvent. As part of an agreement with the regulators Banks resigned his directorships at Eldon in 2013 and Southern Rock in 2014, also accepting a "period of ban or self-exclusion from other insurance directorships".
Banks also bought Old Down Manor from musician Mike Oldfield, converting it into a wedding venue.
In 2016, the leaked Panama Papers indicated Banks along with Elizabeth Bilney were shareholders of British Virgin Islands company PRI Holdings Limited, which was the sole shareholder of African Strategic Resources Limited. However, a spokesperson for Banks has denied any links to the lawyer named and denies that Banks was involved with the Papers. Banks has stated that he has a controlling interest in a diamond mine in Kimberley, South Africa, and a licence to mine in Lesotho. In July 2018, Banks denied that money paid to a government minister in Lesotho was a bribe; it had been paid to guarantee diamond mining rights in Lesotho. In 2013, Banks paid £65,000 into the private bank account of Thesele Maseribane, then the Basotho minister for women's equality. Banks subsequently covered the £350,000 costs of a political campaign for Maseribane, in 2014, following a military coup in Lesotho.
In January 2015, one estimate of Banks's wealth was £100 million. In November 2017, an estimate of £250 million was mentioned.
Other business associations Following intensified media scrutiny after his initial donation to UKIP, it emerged that Banks was involved in mining in southern Africa and had connections to Belize. Banks also has connections to companies based in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man, and close connections with family members of the Belizean Prime Minister. However, following remarks made by The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci on BBC One's Question Time programme, Banks denied owning a company in Belize or seeking to avoid UK tax "via any device". Describing the comments as "clearly defamatory", he threatened legal action towards Iannucci if he did not get an apology within a week.
Asked if his companies paid full corporation tax, Banks said: "I paid over £2.5m of income tax last year ... My insurance business, like a lot of them, is based in Gibraltar but I've got UK businesses as well that deal with customers and pay tax like everyone else." One of the UK businesses of which Banks is director, Rock Services Ltd, the name of which refers to The Rock of Gibraltar, had a turnover of £19.7m in 2013 and paid corporation tax of as little as £12,000. The company deducted £19.6m in "administrative expenses", and the main activity appears to be "recharge of goods and services" with Southern Rock Insurance Company. Southern Rock Insurance states on its website that it underwrites policies for the customers of GoSkippy.com, which is run by Banks.
Rock Services and Southern Rock Insurance's ultimate holding company is Rock Holdings Ltd, a company based on the Isle of Man. Banks has also been a "substantial" shareholder in STM Fidecs, of which Leave.EU is a subsidiary; the company claims to be specialising in "international wealth protection", maximising tax efficiencies for entrepreneurs and expatriates and of "structuring international groups, particularly separating and relocating intellectual property and treasury functions to low- or no-tax jurisdictions".
Political career and donations UK Independence Party Formerly a Conservative Party donor, in October 2014 Banks donated £100,000 to the UK Independence Party. In response to comments from William Hague that Banks had not been a major Conservative donor in past years, and that he had never heard of Banks, Banks increased his UKIP donation to £1 million, directly referencing Hague's interview as his reasoning. Banks said that he had changed party allegiance because he agreed with UKIP's policies and its view that the European Union "is holding the UK back" because it's a "closed shop for bankrupt countries".
Banks signalled his intention to stand for UKIP in the constituency of Thornbury and Yate at the 2015 general election, but the candidate chosen by the party was Russ Martin, who came third.
In September 2016, following Banks's statement that UKIP would be "dead in the water" if Diane James did not become leader, he said that he would leave UKIP if Steven Woolfe was prevented from running for leader and two other senior members, Neil Hamilton and Douglas Carswell, remained in the party.
Banks was sceptical of Paul Nuttall's leadership of UKIP (from November 2016 until June 2017), saying in December 2016 that he might stop supporting the party.
In February 2017, Banks suggested that he might stand in Clacton at the next general election against Carswell, UKIP's only MP. He said in March 2017 that he had been suspended from UKIP, believing the reason was that he had criticised the leadership. UKIP said that his membership had lapsed before this time. In April 2017, he said he would not be contesting the Clacton seat.
In May 2018, Banks joined former UKIP leader Nigel Farage in attending a fundraising event for the Democratic Unionist Party, and stated that he would support a bid by Farage to seek office as a DUP candidate after the end of his tenure as a Member of the European Parliament in 2019.
Conservative Party In October 2014, a spokesman for Nigel Farage said that Banks had funded the Chipping Sodbury office for the South Gloucestershire Conservatives "to the tune of £250,000". However, a Conservative spokesperson said the support was "nothing like the order of magnitude" of sums claimed, and estimated that the donations were "probably around the £22,000 mark".
A UKIP source told The Guardian that Banks had also loaned £75,417 to the Thornbury and Yate Conservative Party through Panacea Finance (his former company) in September 2007, registered on the Electoral Commission and to be paid back by 2022. However, Companies House records show that Banks resigned from the company in September 2005; therefore it was considered questionable as to whether Banks was controlling the company at the time, or whether he was "using the firm as a 'proxy donor'", according to The Guardian.
In August 2018, it was reported that Banks had applied to join the Conservative Party and had suggested that Leave.EU supporters do the same, with the aim of voting in the party's next leadership election. According to the report, Andy Wigmore, Leave.EU's communications director, who had also applied to join the party, announced that they had received an email welcoming them, but the Conservative Party stated that their applications had not been approved. A Conservative Party spokesman said that welcoming emails were automatic but applications were subsequently reviewed, and theirs had been rejected.
Reform UK candidate