‘Secret’ RBS bank report reveals how staff sold off struggling customers property to furnish their homes
The report details the unacceptable treatment of small business owners after the global financial crash. Here are the key points from the fully redacted document.
A REDACTED document has today revealed the extent of mistreatment of small business owners by The Royal Bank of Scotland.
In the wake of the global financial crisis small business owners came to RBS for financial assistance.
The bank's Global Restructuring Group were put in charge of managing these customers and help make them financially stable again.
A report published today by a group of MPs shows how GRG failed these struggling small business owners.
A previous version of the report detailed how RBS staff told skint customers to "Hang themselves"
Here are the key points from the report:
How RBS auctioned off bust firms goods
GRG workers buying items from their own failing customers businesses to help them with "kitting out a new spot".
They described buying items off customers for personal use as "special treatment" and encouraged the staff members involved to keep hushed about it and not to "Take the piss".
How staff dealt with anxious customers
After a customer complained to his relationship manager that his "confrontational" style was causing him "anxiety" the relationship manager forwarded the email from the affected customer onto their friend saying "If you get a couple minutes you may find this entertaining..."
Fees pushed onto customers
A small property owner was handed heavy fees by a relationship manager as an incentive for him to sell some of his product.
Later the same small business owner complained that his relationship manager announced that he would "... attend the meeting pre-planned for XX December with the sole aim to quote... Put our margin rates up through the roof".
The business owner described the behaviour his relationship manager exhibited as "Cynical and Bullying Tactics".
How RBS staff mistreated small firms
One business owner claimed that in the middle of a meeting his relationship manager was "... banging on the table with his hand really loudly, shouting at the top of his voice, issuing threats of instant receivership... (Similar to liquidation but much more immediate)".
The relationship manager was told that he acted out of order but dismissed it saying that "...he wasn't interested in helping the companies finish the project, only to get money back for the bank."
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How complaints about staff were not logged
In 2011, GRG decided that they would no longer treat letters and emails from customers complaining or expressing a dislike for the way they had been treated as formal complaints.
This led to twenty separate instances of customers complaining about their poor treatment only to be ignored by GRG.
The company even used complaints as an excuse to treat cases as lost causes.
One relationship manager said "I'm keen to get this logged as a complaint, as [Senior Manager] is aware of it and will expect to see it listed as a complaint in stats for [GRG Office]."
"Hopefully this case will move into insolvency process in the next two weeks and we can then close it off".
Upping Payments
One customer who had extensive debt with RBS had been making interest payments to the bank, which his company could barely afford.
The bank knew that the customer could not sustain any larger payments but still upped his interest payments as well as changing the customers personal bank account into a short term loan.
This created cash flow problems for company as well as serious personal problems for the customer.
What did RBS say?
An RBS spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry that customers did not receive the experience they should have done while in GRG. The report makes for very difficult reading and some of the language used by our staff in the past was clearly unacceptable."
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