Royal Bank of Scotland

RBS, or the Royal Bank of Scotland is one of the world’s largest financial groups that as well as operating its own branch service also operates the NatWest Branch network. The Royal Bank of Scotland offers through the full range of financial services, although the coverage may vary according to the division used. This includes retail banking, business and corporate services, insurance, private banking and wealth management.

RBS In Scotland

The Royal Bank of Scotland in Scotland is one of the two largest banks. Along with its arch rival the Bank of Scotland, it has a full branch network throughout Scotland which extends to operating in Gaelic in parts of the Highlands and the Hebrides. In its Scottish network it offers a balanced branch service, with retail and small business banking emphasised. The top management has for a long time believed that it had saturated the Scottish market and was looking to the larger English market.

RBS In England

In England RBS historically focussed on helping medium sized businesses. As a result its branch network before buying NatWest was tied to larger towns and cities. After the merger with NatWest this separate brand was maintained, even though many of the back office functions were merged, and aimed further at the business market.

Corporate Banking

In recent years RBS has aggressively moved into corporate banking, a move that has been blamed by many for the weakness that forced it to accept government help in the aftermath of the credit crunch. It gained a reputation as one of the banks most willing to do business with corporate clients accepting less security and also more willing to consider equity stakes in businesses than most other banks. It became famous for a “handshake culture” when business deals would be agreed with a handshake at the end of the meeting and all subsequent negotiations were regarded as a formality.

Takeover of NatWest

In 2000 RBS took over the large English bank NatWest. NatWest was considerably larger than RBS and so the takeover was quite controversial and resulted from the confusion that followed NatWest’s bid for the insurance group Legal & General/ Although RBS was strong in Scotland it wanted to grow into the larger English market. RBS’s branch network in England was less extensive and focussed on banking for medium sized businesses. By closing branches and merging almost all the non-branch functions they shed 18,000 jobs. They used this lower cost base to improve customer service and aggressively chase both retail and corporate customers.

NatWest branch network

The National Westminster bank was one of the big four clearing banks in England with an extensive branch network that reached into most English towns. It was formed by mergers in the 1960s of three large retail banks, the Westminster, the National Provincial and the District Bank. It also had international operations, a strong merchant banking and stock broking arm, the prominent private bank Coutts & Co and regional subsidiaries such as the Ulster Bank and the Isle of Man bank. All of these have been incorporated into the RBS financial group.

RBS Insurance

RBS Insurance is the second largest general insurance company in the UK. It does not trade widely under the name “RBS Insurance” instead using acquired brands such as Direct Line, Churchill and Green Flag. Most of these brands were independent operators who built up strong insurgent brands in the 1990s as insurance companies who could keep prices down by cutting down on costs such as representative offices and agents, by carefully choosing the risks that they insure and conducting all business by post or on the phone. They were bought by RBS and still continue as independent telephone only brands. Recently they have lost substantial business due to their reluctance to advertise on price comparison websites and have launched massive advertising campaigns to regain some lost ground.