Affected by the RBS Business Banking Switch?

RBS made a bit of a mess of things in the lead up to the financial crisis and had to be bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of £45bn to keep it afloat.

As part of the compensation measures, it was originally agreed with the European Commission that RBS would transfer customers of The Royal Bank of Scotland in England and Wales and NatWest in Scotland into a relaunched Williams and Glyn Bank and then divest of that business.

Selling proved harder than anticipated so an alternative Scheme was established to boost competition in business banking in the U.K. by giving financial assistance to to a number of challenger banks, funded by RBS. This is known as the Alternative Remedies Package or, more commonly, the Business Banking Switch.

Apart from some grief that you could probably do without, there are some incentives and compensation available.

RBS is making £275m available to the new challenger banks to allow them to offer incentives for you to transfer

RBS is making £75m available to cover customers’ costs of switching.

You will be able to transfer to any bank, but the Government is keen to increase competition in the business banking market and the £275m that it is effectively fining RBS is being directed towards 15 challenger banks to allow them to develop their services for SMEs and offer switching incentives.

Switching will start on 25 February 2019

RBS is currently encouraging eligible businesses to register their interest in transferring, but it has committed to migrating at least 120,000 of the 202,000 that meet the criteria, so it seems pretty clear that options will become less and less if the target isn’t achieved quickly.