The Royal Bank of Scotland has estimated it will be spending around £400m to refund SMES that were pushed into administration by its Global Restructuring Group (GRG) during 2008 and 2013. The bank will implement a new complaint reviews process with the agreement of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The process will be overseen by retired high court judge, Sir William Blackburne.
The SMEs affected between 2008 and 2013 will now be able to make a formal complaint and RBS will be able to provide an automatic refund for complex fees.
Chief executive of RBS, Rowan McEwan said “Although the FCA review into the historical operation of GRG continues, we believe that now is the right time to deal with the areas where we accept some customers were let down in the past.”
The final report which was provided in September this year found that RBS had placed an undue focus on pricing increase and debt reduction without due consideration to the longer term viability of customers.