Date: 2024-05-18 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00016677
UK ... Banking and Finance Sector
Corruption and Fraud
Treasury Committee publishes RBS-GRG report
Peter Burgess
Treasury Committee publishes RBS-GRG report
20 February 2018 (Accessed May 2019)
The Treasury Committee set the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) the deadline of 16 February to publish the skilled persons’ report (Section 166) into RBS’ treatment of small business customers in its Global Restructuring Group (GRG).
RBS Group's treatment of SME customers referred to the Global Restructuring Group (PDF PDF 20.67 MB)Opens in a new window Open PDF ... UK-Banking-FCA-Report-on-RBS-GRG-misbehavior
If they were unable to meet this deadline, the Committee ordered the FCA to send the report to the Committee by the same date. The FCA did not publish the report on 16 February, so therefore sent it to the Committee.
The Committee has today agreed to publish the final, unredacted report immediately.
Chair's comments
Commenting on the publication, Mrs Morgan said:
'The findings in the report are disgraceful. The overarching priority at all levels of GRG was not the health and strength of customers, but the generation of income for RBS, through made-up fees, high interest rates, and the acquisition of equity and property.
The Committee has not taken the decision to publish lightly. Normally, reports prepared under section 166 are confidential, but there is overwhelming public interest in bringing transparency to what happened at GRG, given the earlier leak of the report, and in ensuring that everyone can see, and know that they are seeing, an authentic and verified copy of Promontory’s original report.
We have today published the terms of reference for our inquiry into SME finance. We’ll examine what must change to prevent what occurred at GRG from ever happening again, and how to restore confidence among SMEs in banks as a source of finance. I encourage all those with views to submit evidence.
As well as continuing to monitor the FCA’s further investigation into GRG, we’ll keep a close eye on RBS’ Complaints Process to determine whether it is providing the fair and reasonable compensation that has been promised to mistreated customers. Any person referred to in the report is invited to make any observations to the Committee.'