In Palm Beach, I couldn’t tip my taxi
Sophia Money-Coutts
Sunday Times, April 12 2026, 8.00pm BST
Major banking news: Coutts, the private bank which counts the Royals among its clients, has just upped its criteria. Now you need to be worth £3 million for Coutts to give you an account, instead of a poxy £1 million. These days, as anyone who’s recently bought a coffee in central London will appreciate, it’s no longer enough to be a mere millionaire. Multi-millionaires only, please.
Look, don’t be downcast if you were hoping to join the gilded institution. Yes, it’s where the Royals bank. Rumour has it there used to be an unmarked black cab in the car park of Coutts’ head office on the Strand that would quietly shuttle between the bank and Buckingham Palace whenever the household needed an injection of dosh. And yes, it used to be my family’s. Ages ago. A charming and diligent ancestor called Thomas Coutts made it the place to bank for British toffs, Royals and French aristocrats fleeing the French Revolution in the 18th century.
Sadly, it was flogged to what became NatWest over a century ago, so any ideas that I’m a banking heiress are very wide of the mark. Yes, my dad worked there for a spell, and it was considered a great treat for my brother and me to visit on half-term (just as Jane and Michael Banks visit their father in Mary Poppins), where we’d peer at the carp in the ponds at the Strand branch. But he was a mere employee. No ownership at all, alas.
You really mustn’t be sad if you fall short of the new £3 million stipulation, though, because while Coutts has retained a reputation for being a dead posh place to stash your cash ever since George III pitched up and asked for a cheque book, nowadays it’s actually a tiny bit common. Remember that drama in 2023, when Nigel Farage complained that he was being kicked out of the bank? Exactly. It’s the kind of place people like Nigel used.
It’s also been linked to Russian oligarchs, and dictators including Pinochet and the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Banking at Coutts is like eating in Sexy Fish or another wildly overpriced but sceney Mayfair restaurant — flashy sorts think it’s a sign they’ve arrived. Meanwhile, the smart money is at more discreet private banks such as C Hoare & Co, and Drummonds. Haven’t heard of them? That’s exactly the point.
Who cares where you bank now, anyway, given that we all use our phones to pay bills, and there’s little opportunity to whip out your wallet and ostentatiously drop your Amex Black or Coutts card on the table? I’m with a terribly downmarket high street bank — I know, mortifying — but luckily nobody ever knows this because I rely on Apple Pay.
In fact, I’ve become so used to paying for everything with my phone that last week I managed to travel to America and forget my wallet entirely. And not just anywhere in America — to Palm Beach, a city which supposedly has the highest density of billionaires in the country.
I only realised my mistake when I strolled through Miami Arrivals and was met by the hotel driver, who took my bag. Hell, I thought, I’ve forgotten my wallet, which means no bank cards, which means no money for tips. I was in the Land of Tipping without any cash.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeatedly gabbled to bellboys and waiters, “I don’t have any notes on me because I left my wallet in London.” You can imagine how warmly this was received in Donald country, where every other car is a Rolls-Royce Cullinan and you can get caviar added to your pizza at the local Italian.
If my phone had been pinched, I’d have been really screwed, but luckily there’s almost no crime in Palm Beach (the late Jeffrey Epstein excluded) because there are so many Secret Service cars crawling around. It was an awkward but not impossible situation, especially since many places now ask for tips via the card machine, too. A takeaway coffee in one deli cost me $11, because I panicked and hit the 20 per cent tip button on the screen at the till. Bank cards — whether they say Coutts or Monzo on them — are pretty much defunct.
Credit: The Sunday Times, London