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Nicky Morgan from the City watchdog has described the Royal Bank of Scotland’s (LON:RBS) attitudes towards small businesses as “unfortunate”, following the lender’s treatment of struggling businesses after the financial crisis.
Last week, a report highlighted RBS’s mistreatment of customers during the crisis. Morgan also criticised the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on their investigation on the issue and the amount of time it had taken to publish the full report.
FCA’s chief executive Andrew Bailey said: “The report is strongly critical of RBS, and I think it is frankly unfortunate that RBS have not in a sense accepted that more readily,”
“I think they should do. Had we had a meeting of minds between the parties early on, then it would have been a quicker process,” he added.
Ross McEwan, RBS chief executive, has since written to MPs with a number of “concerns” over the methodology and approach that was carried out in the report.
“The bank does not agree that the evidence relied upon by the Skilled Person substantiates the key finding that the bank is guilty of ‘widespread inappropriate treatment of customers’,” he said.
“Taken together, these approaches result in misleading conclusions likely to be misunderstood as suggesting that the bank was guilty of serious conduct failings and that these led to poor outcomes for customers.”
The FCA report has not yet been published in full. Instead, a detailed summary has been published, to avoid publication of confidential information about individuals.
Last year, RBS announced plans to put aside £400 million in order to refund small and medium-sized businesses that were mistreated by GRG.
According to RBS, the funds will go towards both an “automatic refund of complex fees” that were paid by firms between 2008 and 2013. It will also cover the operational costs of the complaints process.
The FCA is still in the process of the investigation.