Letter to NatWest Group plc, after the Competition and Markets
Authority found it breached Parts 7, 8 and 9 of the Retail
Banking Market Investigation Order 2017.
CMA letter to NatWest about
breaching Parts 7, 8 and 9 of the Retail Banking
Order
Details
Part 7 of the Retail Banking Market
Investigation Order 2017 (the Order) requires banks to set a
Monthly Maximum Charge (MMC) in relation to unarranged overdraft
charges. Providers cannot charge customers more than the MMC in
any given month. Providers must say what their MMC is each time
they mention unarranged overdraft charges in product literature.
Part 8 of the Order requires banks to disclose the representative
cost in Equivalent Annual Rate (EAR) terms of their overdrafts
and in Annual Percentage Rate (APR) terms for their loans in the
way set out in the Order.
Part 9 of the Order requires that banks offer a price and
eligibility tool which will enable SMEs to obtain an indicative
price quote and indication of their eligibility for unsecured
loans and standard tariff unsecured business overdrafts.
NatWest breached the Order by failing to:
-
either provide the MMC, or to provide the correct MMC to
around 104,800 customers in three separate breaches (Part 7).
The longest breach lasted from 16 June 2023 to 2 April 2024.
-
include the Representative EAR in letters to 66,765 SME
customers which included an offer to renew an overdraft
between May 2021 and February 2024 (Part 8)
-
continuously offer the price and eligibility tool defined in
the Order on four occasions (Part 9). The longest breach was
between at least 1 May 2023 until 5 July 2024 and affected
around 200 SMEs per month
This letter sets out our concerns and what NatWest did to put
things right.
