Banking Competition Remedies back for seconds
The Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) will bring more joy to the UK with plans for a second Incentivised Switching Scheme (ISS) application window to open this year.
Show me the money!
As reported last month, Santander, TSB and Nationwide were 11 of the names that made it to the ISS for extra cash and Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) customers.
To put ISS into context again, BCR is the independent body established to implement the £775 million RBS State Aid Alternative Remedies Package. The bank had to fund this due to the government bailout ten years ago.
ISS will bring some competition and provide funding of £275 million to SME customers from RBS’s scrapped Williams & Glyn (W&G) banking platform, to switch their business current accounts and loans to challenger banks. A further £75 million has been set aside within RBS to cover certain customers’ switching costs.
In the latest development, BCR’s board says the second application window will take place in June 2019.
Godfrey Cromwell, BCR’s chairman, says: “This will expand the opportunity for organisations to be included in ISS, and is therefore in line with BCR’s ambition to improve competition in the business banking market.”
This window is open to entities who meet the published criteria but are not yet part of ISS.
For those already in ISS, there will simultaneously be an opportunity to refresh their offers if they wish to do so. BCR says it will be in touch with them on this.
The application criteria remain unchanged and the process will be similar to that run in November 2018.
BCR will continue to keep its website up to date with FAQs and application guidance. You can access its website here.
