RBS 2007 Annual Report Download - page 26

RBS Group • Annual Report and Accounts 2007
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Corporate Responsibility continued
Corporate Responsibility
Customer service
Our consistent leadership among the main high street banks in
customer satisfaction is a consequence of our desire to make
it as easy as possible to use our services. We operate the
largest branch network in Britain and the second largest in the
island of Ireland and continue to extend them in both locations.
We operate one in five of all free-to-use ATMs in the UK, the
largest free-to-use network in the country. However, our
stakeholders told us that some communities in the UK do not
have reasonable access to a free-to-use ATM. To address this,
we committed to installing additional free-to-use ATMs in
neighbourhoods without existing provision and with 494 in
place we will soon reach our target of 500 machines.
People living in remote communities across Scotland, England
and Wales, often distant from a branch and other services,
can use one of our 20 mobile branches. They make more than
25,000 stops each year and cover in excess of 190,000 miles.
Last year we introduced four new mobile branches in North
Wales and Yorkshire, operated by RBS, and in Cumbria and
Devon under the NatWest brand.
In January we launched a new product designed to meet the
needs of the UK’s growing Polish community. The NatWest
Welcome Account provides easy access to banking services
for Polish speakers in the UK. Since we know that sending
money home is important to them, we have made
arrangements with PKO Bank Polski, Poland’s largest retail
bank, so that customers can make free money transfers
between their NatWest Welcome Account and any account
at PKO Bank Polski. The Welcome Account won the Best
Innovation in Banking award from Scottish Financial Enterprise.
Ulster Bank has added foreign language specialists to a
number of its branches, as well as publishing a ‘Welcome
Brochure’ with sections in Polish, Portuguese, Lithuanian and
Chinese Mandarin.
Citizens in the community
In the US, Citizens has a proud tradition of community involvement
and investment. During 2007, we invested $25 million with more
than 4,000 non-profit organisations and over the last six years
In December, we gave £1 million
to 91 children’s charities, chosen by
staff and readers of the Daily Mail.
Children’s Minister, Rt Hon Beverley
Hughes MP handed over £100,000
to the winning charity, Tommy’s.
Ulster Bank’s musical outreach
programme is designed to nurture
young primary school talent across
the island of Ireland. Children from
St Paul’s Junior National School in
Dublin enjoy their workshop.