As part of a recent strategic review undertaken by The Royal Bank of Scotland International (RBS International), the Bank has announced plans to expand the NatWest franchise in Gibraltar.

Marvin Cartwright, Gibraltar Country Head explained “Currently 80% of our customer base banks with NatWest, and to meet the needs of this growing market and to assist in providing customer excellence, we have taken the decision to re-brand our premises at Corral Road to NatWest. All RBS (Gibraltar) Limited customers will be offered the opportunity to transfer their banking arrangements to NatWest under the same terms and conditions they presently enjoy, but with the added benefit of additional products and services, and the convenience of two branch locations. We recognise that to provide the world class service which our customers expect we need to expand, and with the re-branding of Corral Road to a full-service NatWest branch we can provide all our customers with a choice of locations in which to undertake their banking.

“This decision demonstrates RBS International’s continued commitment to Gibraltar and gives us the unique status of being the only Bank with two full service Branches. This change will complement the significant investment the Bank has recently made to both its premises at Line Wall Road and its ATM network which has recently increased to nine.

“While we are excited to move forward with the single brand of NatWest in Gibraltar, we are also committed to providing choice and minimum disturbance to our RBS customers, whom we will seek to transfer over to our NatWest Banking Systems. This transfer will provide both our RBS personal and corporate customers with an enhanced range of products and services such as internet and telephone banking, together with improved debit card usage and capability”.

The Bank anticipates commencing the programme of re-branding and migrating existing RBS (Gibraltar) Limited customers to NatWest Gibraltar in August, and aims to have it completed by 31 December 2009. A team of advisers will be available to manage the process throughout, ensuring that inconvenience to customers during the migration is kept to a minimum.

As well as providing benefits for all customers, the move underlines the Bank’s commitment to Gibraltar as it seeks to strengthen and consolidate its local business, and focus its customer proposition and local growth plans around the NatWest brand. The project will not result in any job losses.