This includes being the first to launch new products under the Help to Buy: mortgage guarantee scheme. This was followed with further improvements for personal customers with the ability to managing savings on mobile apps and an extension of banking services for customers at the Post Office.
Lending to SMEs has remained in sharp focus through a period that included Sir Andrew Large’s report on his findings from the RBS commissioned independent lending review. To date, RBS and NatWest have offered 23,000 customers around £6.6billion as the banks proactively write to customers in a bid to increase lending following commitments made after the review. Meanwhile, Ross McEwan sought the views of a variety of business customers across the country including a visit to Swift Cycles with Chancellor, George Osborne in November.
Reminders of the challenges facing RBS came either side of the New Year through a three hour technology outage affecting customers in December and a trading update at the end of January. Investment in I.T. will be crucial to the future success of RBS and, during a live Q&A with Guardian readers Ross explained: “I will spend as much as I need to to keep systems up for our customers.”
Further events were held throughout February as Ross met with customers and staff including a trip to Ulster Bank in Ireland. Ross presented his thoughts on the future of RBS writing in The Guardian about putting customers at the heart and soul of the bank and, at a customer event in London, further explaining his aspiration for RBS is: “not to be the biggest bank in the world but the best bank in the UK.”
