The Royal Bank of Scotland – Covid-19 Update
Update from Managing Director, Corporate & Commercial Banking Scotland & Chairman, Scotland Board [02/04/2020]
Last week I provided an overview of the bank’s coronavirus support measures, but given the fast-moving nature of events, I wanted to further update you on what we are doing to support customers and colleagues during this unprecedented time.
Some of the detail listed below and in the attached was in my previous update but I would like to draw your attention to the further measures we have announced. These include:
Personal customers:
• Freezing overdraft interest rates at current levels for personal customers for at least three months and removing all other overdraft fees and charges.
• Following the two Bank of England base rate decreases, we have passed on the full rate change to mortgage customers.
• We’ve received significant interest from customers on mortgage repayment holidays. We have already processed the majority of these. On application, we let customers know that if their payment was due in the next 14 days, we may not be able to stop the payment. We have e-mailed customers affected to let them know that they will still benefit from the full 3 month offering, but this will run May – July.
• Proactively contacted over 150,000 customers over the age of 70 who don’t have access to digital banking to check on their welfare and find out how we can support them.
• Vulnerable customers and NHS workers now have the option to get up to £500 delivered securely to their home address, thanks to our new partnership with Travelex.
Business customers:
• Implemented our Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans – which start at £5,000 (which is lower than any other bank).
• We said right from the start that we will not take Personal Guarantees (PG) in support of any CBILS loans.
• We have received significant interest in the CBILS scheme which is driving exceptionally high call levels to our centres. We are working as quickly as we can to process these, and working with the UK government to broaden availability of the scheme and further streamline the process to get funds to businesses as fast as we can.
• We are already assisting larger customers who wish to apply for Bank of England’s Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).
• We are also actively working with customers unable to access either CBILS or CCFF to explore alternative forms of finance and we are engaging with Bank of England and Treasury officials on how these customers could be best supported.
General:
• Match funding donations made by our customers to the National Emergencies Trust, contributing a total donation of up to £10 million.
• More than £1 million to help 8 not-for-profit, debt management partners including PayPlan, StepChange, Money Advice Trust, Citizens Advice, Citizens Advice Scotland, Money Advice Scotland, Christians Against Poverty and Advice NI.
• Using our HQ at Gogarburn in Edinburgh as a food bank distribution hub for Social Bite and Trussell Trust charities.
In the weeks and months ahead, colleagues from the bank will continue to work closely with policymakers, regulators and the wider sector to tackle the shared challenges we face.
We will continue to do all we can to support customers and the economy as a whole. Our colleagues in the bank are working incredibly hard, in difficult circumstances, and are facing many of the same concerns around health, family support and wellbeing as the rest of the population. Like many organisations we have fewer colleagues responding to much greater enquiries than normal. We are doing everything we can to support our colleagues and are moving quickly to get solutions in place so we can help customers as fast and as accurately as possible.
Anything you can do to assist us would be most welcome including ensuring those most in need are helped first, promoting the support measures we have put in place and sharing our customer support content via social media channels (@RBS_Help and @Natwest_Help) to drive better awareness.
We will continue to update you as regularly as we can but, in the meantime, please feel free to contact me if you have any pressing issues.
Kind regards,
Malcolm Buchanan
Managing Director, Corporate & Commercial Banking Scotland & Chairman, Scotland Board
APPENDIX
Business customers
Business Lending Actions:
• We announced a £5bn Working Capital Fund before any other bank, lending nearly £500m within days to help our customers to adapt to the crisis and begin to weather the storm.
• Up to 6-month Capital Repayment Holiday on fixed and variable rate lending. Over 10,000 have been requested so far.
• The granting of new overdrafts or extension of existing overdraft limits.
• Customers can have immediate access, if required to surplus cash in their Treasury Reserve Deposit accounts.
• For those businesses that need extra help we have commitments to ensure we support them in an empathetic way and have suspended all recovery actions until June.
Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS)
• Implemented CBILS which start at £5,000 (lower than any other bank). We have received significant interest in CBILS which is driving exceptionally high call levels to our centres. We are addressing this and giving more authority to Relationship Managers to make key decisions to speed up payment.
• We are working as quickly as we can to process applications and working with the UK government to broaden availability of the scheme and further streamline the process to get funds to businesses as fast as we can.
• We said right from the start that we will not take Personal Guarantees (PG) in support of any CBILS loans.
• We are also actively working with customers unable to access either CBILS or CCFF to explore alternative forms of finance and we are engaging with Bank of England and Treasury officials on how these customers could be best supported.
Large Corporates and the Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility:
• We are already assisting customers who wish to apply for Bank of England’s Covid-19 Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).
• Supported significant drawings on existing revolving credit facilities with c.£6bn drawn in the last couple of weeks.
Further support:
• Further information for our customers can be found on the:
• Royal Bank of Scotland customers – Royal Bank of Scotland Business hub
• NatWest customers – NatWest Business hub
• Ulster Bank – Ulster Bank Business hub
Personal customers
Mortgages:
• Following the two Bank of England base rate decreases from 0.75% to 0.10%, The Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest and Ulster Bank Northern Ireland Bank Rate is also decreasing from 0.75% to 0.10%. Customers on the Standard Variable Rate will see a reduction of the two full base rate decreases from 4.24% to 3.59%, effective from 1 April.
• We’ve received significant interest from customers for a mortgage repayment holiday, and we have already processed the majority of these. On application, we let customers know that if their payment was due in the next 14 days, we may not be able to stop the payment. We have e-mailed customers affected to let them know that they will still benefit from the full 3 month offering, but this will run May – July.
Overdrafts:
• NatWest, Royal Bank and Ulster Bank customers will pay less for their overdraft for the next 3 months. We are freezing overdraft interest at current rates for personal customers for at least three months.
• The bank has also removed all other overdraft fees and charges. Customers will continue to pay their current rate of interest for at least three months, a maximum of 19.89% EAR across arranged and unarranged borrowing.
Support for NHS Workers
• We have set up an emergency customer care line for NHS workers. This line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for our customers.
• The line has been set up so NHS workers can get through quickly when they really need us.
• Our team of experts have already taken over thousand calls.
Further support:
• Mortgage and loan repayment deferral for up to three months. This is available to both our residential and buy-to-let customers whose tenants are experiencing issues with their finances. We have also agreed a three-month moratorium on residential and buy-to-let possession action.
• Customers can close fixed savings accounts to access cash with no early closure charge.
• Refunds on credit card cash advance fees.
• We won’t charge a late fee for any credit card payments due from 1 April until 30 June. This will be done automatically.
• Customers can apply for increased credit card limit.
• Customers can request an increased cash withdrawal limit of up to £500 (debit card).
• Customers will now be able to make contactless card payments up to £45.
Branches
• Much of our branch network remains open and we’re prioritising core opening hours from Monday to Friday, from 10am to 1pm. Aligned to the relevant public health guidance, we have reviewed our opening hours to ensure we can cater for our colleagues who are absent, many of them self-isolating.
• We are urging customers to regularly check their local services by visiting:
• Royal Bank of Scotland – https://locator-rbs.co.uk/
• NatWest – https://locator.natwest.com/?html
• Ulster Bank – https://locator.ulsterbank.co.uk/
Access to Cash
• There are several ways we can support customers’ cash needs – and we are working to develop more options too. Customers can use ATMs, Post Offices and can call us or log into the mobile app to get a ‘GetCash’ code, which can be used to withdraw cash without a card.
• Vulnerable customers and NHS workers now have the option to get cash delivered securely to their home address.
• Colleagues behind our Customer Care lines can now also issue a code over the phone which customers can give to a friend, neighbour or volunteer to withdraw an agreed amount of cash from an ATM within the next three hours.
Customer security
• Our security team has used the system we built for detecting fake bank websites and tasked it to look for new Coronavirus domains and web sites. In the past 24hrs we have seen c.2000 new domains created, of which approximately 80% are malicious – we are now working with the NCSC to take these down
Colleagues
• The vast majority of our colleagues are now working from home (>45k).
• We are working with governments and local authorities on planning and finding the right level of support for staff who are deemed “key workers”.
• We are ensuring that all our contractors (permanent, temporary, contractor, supplier) are following exactly the same advice.
• We are closing down buildings where there are minimal staff to reduce the need for cleaners, guards and other roles which cannot be done remotely. We have also stopped all non-vital construction work.
• We have committed to our staff that they will get their full pay for the next 6 months.
Charitable support:
• Match funding donations made by our customers to the National Emergencies Trust, contributing a total donation of up to £10 million.
• More than £1 million to help 8 not-for-profit, debt management partners including PayPlan, StepChange, Money Advice Trust, Citizens Advice, Citizens Advice Scotland, Money Advice Scotland, Christians Against Poverty and Advice NI.
• Using our HQ at Gogarburn in Edinburgh as a food bank distribution hub for Social Bite and Trussell Trust charities.
