NatWest Bank

NatWest, or National Westminster, Bank is one of the top four bank branch networks in the UK. It is wholly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

NatWest offers the full range of banking services, including savings accounts, business lending, investment services and mortgages. It’s recent focus has been on the business market, where RBS is also strong. It’s rivals are the other extensive branch networks, Barclays, HSBC, Halifax Bank of Scotland and Lloyds.

NatWest has traditionally been counted among the big four clearing banks in the UK. It has 1600 branches, a network of 2400 cash machines, 33 300 employees, 850 000 small businesses who bank there and 7.5 million personal bank account customers.

The National Westminster bank was an amalgam of three banks who merged in the 1960s. These banks were the Westminster Bank, the National Provincial Bank and the District Bank. The three part logo of NatWest was said to represent the three parts of the bank.

Merger with the Royal Bank of Scotland

In 2000 NatWest was bought by the Royal Bank of Scotland, also known as RBS. RBS was one of the top two banks in Scotland who were keen to grow into the larger English market. They already had a small branch network in England that concentrated on helping medium sized businesses and believed that they would be able to merge back office functions and close some duplicate branches. In this they largely succeeded and went on to position NatWest aggressively as a customer friendly bank by, for example, opening many of their branches on Saturday.

Other banks that became part of the NatWest group at this time were the Ulster Bank, Coutts & Co, and the Isle of Man bank. They all carried on separate identities.

Ulster Bank

Ulster Bank was established in 1836 and acquired by the Westminster Bank in 1917. Although it uses much of the branding of NatWest, including the three part logo, it still continues as a separate name and branch network It is active in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; It also runs the First Active branch network in the Republic of Ireland.

Coutts & Co.

Coutts & Co. is one of the UK’s foremost private banks, which provide a more expensive and higher level of service for high net worth clients. Its clients include most members of the Royal Family. It was established in 1692 as a partnership and was bought by National Provincial in 1920. It has now been renamed RBS Coutts to tie it into the larger Royal Bank of Scotland Group and is part of RBS Wealth Management.

Isle of Man Bank

The Isle of Man bank was established in 1865 and bought by National Provincial in 1962. It maintains a branch structure on the small jurisdiction of the Isle of Man but its main value to the group is as a bank that can handle offshore accounts that allow British taxpayers a favourable tax treatment for their interest payments.

County NatWest

County NatWest was the name of the stock broking and merchant banking arm of NatWest. It used the branch network to attract business and so is much more focussed on the retail customer than other similar companies.

Foreign Operations

National Westminster SA was originally the International Westminster Bank’s branch network in France and Monaco. Deutsche Westminster Bank was result of the merger of the German branch network with Global Bank AG. National Westminster Bancorp in the United States operates 340 branches and NatWest also has active operations in Canada, Australia and the Far East.

Commercial Banks Guide > NatWest Bank