Royal Bank of Scotland International has boosted its local online banking team with the recent appointments of Kiara Lopez and Vicki Coxe as Electronic Banking Consultants. Both have experience of working in the bank’s Corporate Services Team and they are looking forward to bringing their client-focus know-how to the online banking area.

RBS introduced eQ, its online banking product for local businesses, both big and small, five years ago. It has become widely used not only by local corporate and intermediary businesses, but by many international companies as well. The number of client sign ups has almost doubled in the last year alone and is now hovering around 200 clients.

Kiara Lopez, eQ’s service manager says. “The absolute number of clients is a little misleading as a single client such as a lawyer or a company manager may have more than 300 separate accounts. The system is highly scalable and it is easy for a client to add new accounts as and when they need.”

“One of the big benefits for our corporate clients is that they can see the state of any of their accounts in real time. This has been a huge benefit for local businesses and has enabled them to be much more efficient with managing their cash,” says Lopez.

Costs of the system vary but will be based on a number of parameters such as level of use, number of accounts and what other business the client does with the bank.

RBS developed the system in partnership with IBM and it has undergone several further developments since its introduction. A few prospective clients have expressed some initial reservation about online security. However, the system’s architecture has been thoroughly tested by a number of third party security specialists to ensure that it is totally secure. In addition to online monitoring and specialist software aimed at detecting wrongful intrusion, the bank’s security compliance team run ongoing checks to ensure no part of the system is breached.