NatWest Bank was born out of the 1968 merger between UK based National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. After it reeled from mismanagement controversies which caused its share prices to fall, it became a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland group in the year 2000. The latter is the second largest bank in Europe and ranks 5th largest in the world. Although basically a commercial bank, Natwest is commonly identified as one of the Big Four clearing banks in UK. It has a vast network of branches which services about 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts. In the United States, it is represented by the National Westminster Bancorp through a network of 340 branches. To date, NatWest has fully expanded by opening more branches across the European continent and the Far East. NatWest Online Banking has joined the bandwagon of electronic banking system in 2005, aside from offering a varied selection of banking and insurance services.
Natwest’s online banking included the traditional products with a few additional touches. It launched its version as a multi-currency internet banking system and classified the products into premium, private, student or graduate. In the UK-based NatWest, a personal internet savings account (ISA), may earn a 6% p.a. interest paid monthly and guaranteed at least up to July 2009. The bank also made a distinction in another form of online banking tagged as International Personal Banking. This enables a client to gain access to their account from any part of the world using a special customer number, PIN and password. Customer transactions that involve payments to third parties or foreign exchange deals can avail of these features by using a smartcard and a card reader. This is aimed at ensuring tougher security measures in international payments
As a tool for supportive customer assistance the company provides a 24-hour telephone hot-line wherein its support force is required to utilize plain understandable English. NatWest is of UK origin in which the English form of verbal communication may at times differ if applied to its offshore units in the US and the Far East.
Based on a UK survey, at least 10.9 million of the UK population uses the NatWest Online Banking system. Due to NatWet’s distinguishing features in internet banking, 2 million people out of those surveyed accessed their electronic facilities.
