Ulster Bank's parent has set aside millions of euro for businesses it treated unfairly

ULSTER BANK’S PARENT company has announced a multimillion euro compensation scheme for SME customers that were unfairly treated by the group’s post-crash restructuring unit.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will refund “complex fees” paid by small business owners that dealt with its defunct global restructuring group (GRG) from 2008 to 2013.

The GRG was supposed to help SMEs that were in financial difficulty, but the bank admitted that it didn’t clearly explain the change to prices and fees it was charging.

The bank acknowledged that it “could have done better for SME customers in GRG” and “did not always communicate as well or as clearly as it should have done”.

“Specifically, the bank could have managed the transition to GRG better and should have better explained to customers any changes to the prices or complex fees it was charging,” it said in a statement.

Irish customers

Around £400 million (€449 million) has been set aside to deal with the fallout.

Ulster Bank customers in Ireland are eligible to make a claim and the company said it is “working to see how we can apply the same support where appropriate” for businesses here.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial regulator, cleared the bank of serious allegations that it tried to profit from small and medium-sized businesses’ financial distress by putting healthy firms into the GRG, which was set up for customers that were in clear financial difficulty.

The FCA accused the bank of poor communication and said it failed to support small businesses. It welcomed RBS’s compensation programme.