Prince Andrew should be investigated by Parliament over a $2 million loan his banker friend repaid days after it was taken out, an ex-minister says.
The money was approved on the strength of Queen Elizabeth II’s reputation even though staff said it was “not in line with the risk appetite of the bank,” a credit application quoted by Bloomberg revealed.
U.K. Conservative Party donor David Rowland transferred the same sum to Banque Havilland 11 days later, in 2017, with the money earmarked to repay the loan, the news outlet reported.
The financier and his family are considered owners of the bank, even though he has not been an executive there.
With little in the way of visible support, questions over how the Duke of York has been able to fund his lifestyle have rarely been answered. In the past he has appeared to live the jetset life of a multimillionaire, with holidays aboard luxury yachts, regular golfing sojourns and ski trips to exclusive resorts.
Yet the Queen’s second son’s only publicly known income was the £249,000 a year he received as an allowance to fund his Buckingham Palace office while undertaking royal duties. The allowance was paid by the Queen from the private income she received from the Duchy of Lancaster estate. In addition to this allowance, Andrew would also have a small pension from his time serving with the Royal Navy, a job he left in 2001.
Today, with no royal duties to perform, it is not known what, if anything, he receives from his mother. Forced to step back from public life in November 2019 after the fallout over his car-crash Newsnight interview on his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he is rarely seen in public.