RBS employees warned on accounts

Employees of the RBS (LSE: RBS; NYSE: RBS PRM) have been warned that if they do not open an account with the bank or one of its subsidiaries, at the very least they will not be paid. That means that employees must have an account with RBS, NatWest, One Account, Coutts, or Adam & Co. The warning admonishes staffers to act immediately, as it takes up to five weeks to switch accounts.

The bank says that it is a common industry practice for banks to pay salaries directly into a current account held with the bank the employee works for. It further claims that it is made clear to prospective employees that they must open an account with the bank upon employment and that otherwise employees are free to bank with whomever they wish.

Finance union Amicus says that it has been contacted by a number of RBS employees who are unhappy with the requirement and has said that they are in process of seeking legal advice and are willing to fight the bank on the issue, which apparently affects around 14,000 of the bank’s 135,000 employees. Many of the employees receiving the notices that they must open an account with RBS work for bank subsidiaries Direct Line and Churchill Insurance and have since before they were taken over by the bank. They have questioned why this issue has arisen now, rather than when RBS took over the companies they work for.

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