There have been some surprising reports in the media about a police investigation into a British bank’s treatment of its SME customers. Apparently detectives are looking into whether their practices amounted to criminal behaviour.
The reported allegations apparently relate to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and whether staff there actually tried to force firms to the brink of insolvency so that the bank could grab and profit from their assets when they went bust by not helping them out with overdrafts, lending and cash flow when they faced tricky times at the height of the financial crisis.
The bank, and don’t forget 70% of the shares are still owned by the British taxpayer, acknowledged that it was aware of a complaint and has said they will cooperate fully with the Police Scotland investigation. It is believed that the specific charges are related to the now defunct global restructuring group (GRG) division at RBS.
They said: “RBS has recently become aware that Police Scotland are reviewing an individual complaint made against the bank. RBS is not privy to any details but will cooperate with any request for information made by Police Scotland.”
Police Scotland is presiding over the investigation and they say they have “received reports regarding the Royal Bank of Scotland and that enquiries are ongoing to assess if there is any criminality present in the allegations made within these reports”.
Last November, RBS said it would pay £400m to recompense a number of small businesses found to have been badly treated by the bank by the GRG division. The fund was established to recompense fees they were charged erroneously. And fresh complaints could be made for alleged mistreatment of small firms between 2008 and 2013 in a process that will be overseen by a retired high court judge.
Have you been affected by these RBS problems?
5 Responses
haven’t been affected personally, but i think heads should roll.
they won’t, there’ll be no evidence to actually put anyone behind bars, as usual.
but somobody somewhere made a conscious decision to profit from the misery of others -to expedite and enhance said misery. they decided to actively ruin people’s lives, to destroy business and livelihoods, and all so a multi-billion bank could get a bit richer.
there aren’t many people i’d consider to be literally “evil” in this day and age, but that kind of thinking is, there’s no excuse for it, and the evil b**tard(s) behind it belongs in jail.
RBS refused to give us merchant facilities a few years ago. The money we said we sold on Ebay they responded “we don’t support businesses like yours”. Really looked down their nose at the small business and especially Ebay. . I am glad they have been exposed.
Banked with RBS for years their abysmal,
only reason we have stated with them is because of the hassle of moving,;plus most other banks are just as bad, or little better,
we also were made to feel we were somehow sub standard when we enquired about an RBS merchant account,
last we checked paypal would give us a loan of £30k at the click of a button
RBS you need to fill forms the thickness of a book, and just about donate a vital organ, and give them the size of your willy ,before they will loan a fiver
Royal Bank of $h**
Answers on a post card…..
Having banked with Nat West for about 12+ years, we were suddenly shut down with no warning.
We had 30 days in which to repay the overdraft & credit cards, our merchant facilities, customer not present facility as well as retail shop, were also shut-down as was our car insurance with Direct Line.
I spoke to my bank manager who said he knew something was up as he had been shut out of our accounts but was not privy to the reasons due to bank manager / client relationships.
Never did get to the bottom of why, but have been happy with HSBC since the move