The Observer - 11.08.2019

• The Observer
  12 11.08.19 News

RBS set to be fi rst

major British bank

led by a woman

Alison Rose, a veteran

of 25 yea rs, slated to

succeed Ross McEwan

Royal Bank of Scotland is set to name

Alison Rose as its next chief executive,

making her the fi rst woman to lead

one of Britain’s major lenders.

Rose, who has worked at RBS for 25

years, has long been the City’s favour-

ite to succeed Ross McEwan , with

rumours that she was in the running

predating his resignation in April.

Her appointment is being con-

sidered by City regulators, includ-

ing the Bank of England’s Prudential

Regulation Authority, and is expected

to be announced in the coming weeks,

according to Sky News. It comes a

week after RBS’s last board meeting,

where the selection process – led by

its chairman Howard Davies – would

have been discussed.

Once confirmed, the decision

means the bank, which is partly

state-owned, will have installed two

women in its most powerful execu-

tive positions this year. Katie Murray

was made fi nance chief in January.

None of RBS’s main rivals, includ-

ing Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds

Banking Group, has ever appointed a

woman in any of the top three board-

room positions in the male-domi-

nated industry. However, the board

of Santander’s UK division is chaired

by Shriti Vadera.

Rose, 49, will have beaten other can-

didates, rumoured to include HSBC’s

UK boss Ian Stuart and Whitbread

chief executive Alison Brittain who

previously led Lloyds Banking

Group’s retail operations. Mark Bailie ,

a former RBS chief operating offi cer,

has also been mentioned.

RBS did not confi rm the reports,

saying: “The process to appoint Ross

McEwan’s successor is ongoing. Our

next CEO will be confi rmed in due

course, once an appointment has

been made.”

Rose’s career at RBS began in the

early 1990s, and her rapid ascent

through its ranks fi nally landed her

the job as McEwan’s deputy chief

at the lender’s ring-fenced bank,

NatWest Holdings, in December.

That was on top of her existing

duties as chief executive of its pri-

vate and commercial banking busi-

ness, where she oversaw projects

such as the development of Mettle, its

fi rst digital-only bank for small and

medium-sized businesses.

She has not shied away from the

public eye, having led a Treasury-

commissioned inquiry into the bar-

riers facing female entrepreneurs,

known as the Rose review.

She also appeared in Downing

Street last month to launch the

Investing in Women code, a pledge

by banks to boost funding for female

business owners.

Her leadership will come at a turn-

ing point for the bank, which is still

How your

cash card

could soon

say No to

bad habits

It’s almost inevitable that best-laid

plans go awry, from avoiding fast food

to resisting a Tuesday night bottle of

wine or a sneaky cigarette on a night

out. But technology could soon be set

to intervene and protect us from our

worst impulses – via the bank.

The chief executive of Monzo , one

of a raft of new digital banks that has

changed the way the younger gen-

eration handles its money, has said

he would like to put in self-admin-

istered “blocks” preventing people

from spending on alcohol and cig-

arettes. Another move towards pre-

meditated self-exclusion could be for

people to prevent themselves from

indulging in late-night carb binges

by placing a block on their card from

spending in fast-food joints, he said.

Last year London-based Monzo,

which has 2.6 million customers , put

in place a tool that allows users to stop

spending on gambling transactions.

In an interview with the Observer

magazine today, chief executive Tom

Blomfi eld said a similar block could

be put in place for McDonald’s.

“ You could do a McDonald’s block

quite easily,” he said. “But alcohol and

cigarettes are the two I would really

love to put a block on.”

Blomfield said Monzo does not

have the data at present to put a booze

block in place, which would need the

participation of retailers. “But what

Tesco could do is send entire receipt

data through the Mastercard and

Visa networks, which would then

enable us to say: ‘Aha! There’s alco-

hol on that!’ Then we could decline

the transaction until you take the

alcohol out of your cart and reswipe

your card. It’s entirely possible, it just

needs all of the shops to adopt it.”

Last week, Monzo told almost

480,000 customers to change their

pins after it left information exposed

to unauthorised staff for six months.

The bank said it usually stored pin

records in a “particularly secure” part

of its internal system. But it discov-

ered that pins were also being cop-

ied onto fi les, that could be accessed

by about 110 unauthorised engineers.

Kalyeena Makortoff

Banking Correspondent

Shane Hickey

& Richard Godwin

ON OTHER PAGES

Th e bank manager will see you

now: Tom Blomfi eld interview

Observer Magazine, pages 18-

trying to repair its reputation follow-

ing a string of scandals and its £45bn

bailout at the height of the fi nancial

crisis in 2008.

Over the past decade, RBS has

been plagued by claims that it mis-

sold toxic mortgage-backed securities

during the lead-up to the fi nancial

crash, and that it pushed small busi-

nesses towards failure in order to

strip and sell their assets for profi t.

But after reaching a multibillion-

pound settlement with US author-

ities, and being given a pass by the

Financial Conduct Authority over the

treatment of some small business

customers, the bank has a relatively

clean slate to be handed to Rose.

RBS, which is still 62% owned by

the state, could be fully privatised

under her watch if a government

timeline to sell off its fi nal stake by

2024 is successful. And with RBS

pledging to improve customer ser-

vice, after languishing at the bottom

of sector league tables, things are

likely to improve.

Alison Rose will

be the new chief

executive of Royal

Bank of Scotland.

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