The chairman of the Treasury Select Committee has called for the release of the review into Royal Bank of Scotland’s treatment of its business customers.
Andrew Tyrie has written to the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority following the leak of documents about this issue earlier this month.
The documents allegedly show RBS, which denies the claims, deliberately put pressure on struggling businesses it claimed to be helping and bought their assets cheaply.
Mr Tyrie said: “RBS have said that they will consider the question of redress after publication of the FCA’s report.
“The delay in publication means that many businesses will not know where they stand.
“I have asked Mr Bailey when he intends to publish the report. It is likely that this will be raised when the committee sees him before the end of the year.”
In November 2013 the government appointed "entrepreneur in residence" Lawrence Tomlinson published a report making a number of allegations against RBS, including that it artificially distressed otherwise viable businesses and put them on a journey towards administration, receivership and liquidation.
It also alleged that once transferred into the bank’s business support division, the Global Restructuring Group, the businesses were not supported properly and this had a “catalytic effect” on the journey to insolvency.
In January 2014 the FCA said it would carry out a review into issues surrounding RBS, which was due to be published at the end of 2015.
The report has still has not been published.
RBS responded by appointing Clifford Chance to investigate and it found it could not assess the allegations because it was “difficult to understand” how the bank calculated the fees which it proposed to customers in any particular case.
