RBS staff pressured to sell increased amount of loans

A number of whistleblowers have claimed that RBS staff are being pressured to sell a mass amount of loans and mortgages by managers ahead of the sale of Williams & Glyn. Account managers and private managers have resorted to cold calling sessions, seeking a minimum of 20 customers per week. Last month, RBS announced a delay to the £1.2bn project to spinoff 300 branches to Williams & Glyn, now costing an estimated £50m a month. 

Staff at a flagship Royal Bank of Scotland branch in the heart of the City of London are being pressured to flog loans and mortgages, according to claims made by whistleblowers.

They say branch staff have to cold call customers every day and are bullied into filling managers' diaries – failure to do so means staying late and eventually the stress of being put on a performance contract that puts their job under scrutiny.

Insiders claim it is happening at its Threadneedle Street branch, in the shadow of the Bank of England and right under the noses of some of the most influential financial players in the country.

Financial heart: The Threadneedle Street branch of RBS is in the shadow of the Bank of England, as shown here

This particular branch is set to be re-branded as Williams & Glyn, a bank which is yet to receive its licence from regulators.

It means any customers who open a loan or mortgage or other product via this branch will be shifted over to Williams & Glyn once the re-brand happens.

The whistleblower says the pressure has started in the past couple of months – and believes it could be to make the branches look good ahead of the move over to the Williams & Glyn brand.

RBS has been forced to break away part of its business as part of its bail out in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

The whistleblower said: 'Staff are being heavily pressured to push mortgages and loans as part of their commitments and are incentivised with quarterly bonuses.

'Account managers and private managers have a cold calling session every day to as many customers as they can, especially to sell mortgages and loans.

'The customer service team also have to call one hour every day to book as many appointments as they can into the account managers diaries - if they don't fill their diaries they are forced to stay till late evenings.

'Staff are very stressed and scared to say anything as the managers will put them on a performance contract and eventually drive them out.'

Prime location: This map also shows just how close the branch is to some of the most influential financial decision makers in the country

Confidential e-mails seen by This is Money show an area director – who looks after the Threadneedle Street branch along with other London locations such as Blackfriars, Islington, Mayfair and Camden, which are also soon to come under the Williams & Glyn banner – urging branch managers to ask why staff don't have enough customers booked in to be sold products.

In one e-mail from April, the area director takes a stern tone, saying: 'We have the best branches in our region in terms of potential growth locations yet not all appear to be using this to our advantage.

'To be really clear every customer adviser should be seeing a minimum of 20 customers per week and meeting at least 4 needs per week.

'For next week only I want you to e-mail me at the end of any day where your customer adviser has not seen 4 customers to explain why and also what they did with the free hours in their day.'

The 'needs' referred to in the e-mail are a familiar piece of industry jargon which can often amount to code for customers opening new products.

Two weeks later and clearly incensed that branches are not meeting targets, the area director asks why only 37 per cent of diaries are filled.

The area director adds: 'By close of today everyone should be at least 60 per cent of capacity for next week.'

She then lists how branches are performing, with St Paul's seeing just two in 25 appointment slots filled up and Mayfair six in 23.

RBS said in November last year that it had scrapped sales targets for staff, in a move designed to ensure customers know they are only being sold products in their best interests.

Retail banks in general have cracked down on sales targets, after the industry was stung to the tune of billions of pounds for selling payment protection insurance to customers who did not need it.

The whistleblower says RBS has not learned its lesson from its previous lending binge, which they argue caused damage to the group and a deluge of complaints from customers.

They also add that they are 'sure the Financial Conduct Authority would be interested in this sales culture.'

At the end of last year, the FCA quietly shelved plans for an inquiry into the culture, pay and behaviour of staff in banking.

It had planned to look at whether pay, promotion and other incentives had contributed to scandals involving banks in the past.

DO YOU WORK AT NATWEST/RBS? Are you a staff member at an RBS or NatWest branch soon to be rebranded as a Williams & Glyn? Have you seen sales tactics seemingly re-emerge, or is it a different case in your branch? Contact me in confidence: lee.boyce@thisismoney.co.uk <!- - ad: https://mads.dailymail.co.uk/v8/ru/money/moneysaving/article/other/mpu_factbox.html?id=mpu_factbox_1 - ->

In a jargon heavy response, the FCA said it had decided a 'traditional thematic review' would not help it achieve its 'desired outcomes', promising instead to encourage the 'delivery of cultural change'.

Other experts suggested it was politically motivated, while the Treasury denied involvement in the decision.

The whistleblower also says staff have to listen to an audio every day and e-mail back the activity they have done for the day, especially focused on loans and mortgages.

They add: 'This is very conflicting as [RBS chief executive] Ross McEwan announced in November 2015 that bonuses for staff will be scrapped in an attempt to avoid future mis-selling scandals and there will be no sales targets for staff.

'The sales culture is coming from the regional directors and area directors to gain their bonuses. Staff are extremely stressed.'

RBS said it changed its incentive schemes in 2012, so that any reward staff received on top of their basic pay depended on them meeting certain customer satisfaction standards.

A further change in January 2016 was meant to remove any sort of incentive, so staff will now have a set salary.

A spokesman from RBS told This is Money: 'We want all of our employees to be focused on doing the right thing for our customers.

'None of our customer-facing staff receive product-related incentives. We take these allegations very seriously and will of course investigate all of the matters raised here.'

Last month it was revealed that RBS has delayed spinning off 300 branches set to be under the Williams & Glyn banner.

It's not clear if staff nationwide in branches set to be re-branded as Williams & Glyn are also being put under the same pressure.

The £1.2billion project has faced a string of difficulties and is now costing an estimated £50million a month.

The banking giant shocked the City in April by admitting an EU-imposed deadline of December 31 next year could be missed.