It could stay as a branded-chequebook-only thing, but the fact the branch is closing makes me think that’s extremely unlikely.
I agree with you that frontline workers probably have no idea and have just parroted the usual line that they give when a customer asks about their branch closing - “nothing’s changing, just the branch”. After all, most RBS staff never knew about Child & Co in the first place. When I ordered my first chequebook from them years ago, the person ordering it briefly got confused until I explained it was a special branch with different branding. They thought a different chequebook design coming up on their system by default was some kind of error!
They actually said “thank you for explaining it to me, that’s very interesting” (or words to that effect)!
For what it’s worth, here is the question I asked:
Sorry to learn the Child & Co branch is closing. Does this mean the Child & Co brand will disappear completely now? I know the products were standard RBS ones but it was nice having a special debit card while it lasted.
I didn’t even ask about cheque books, but the response indicated that the special chequebooks would remain.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this was wrong however.
For those pointing to letters as proof the cheques will go - bear in mind that other than pointing out RBS customers can use NatWest branches and something about the deposit box service - the letter was word for word the same as one I received at the same time about the NatWest branch in the Victoria Centre closing (other than addresses and branch names). That too had the same wording about how cheques would have the new address of [other NatWest branch].
I expect in time it will all go sadly but I don’t know if we are yet at that junction.
I guess when they finally pull the plug on Visa Debit cards that will be a pretty strong indication.
The brand might be staying, but not necessarily for everybody. They could still be using this as an opportunity to keep the genuine private banking customers and boot out the hoi polloi.
I expect they’ll have to replace MasterCards by June, and as such the Child & Co cards might be going too. There must be a reason why everyone, except C&Co customers, are now getting the new MCs and I doubt it’s because they haven’t yet redesigned the card.
I agree with @Seb and @RSheff that this is an exercise to get rid of the proletariat and keep the brand for private customers and/or move them to Coutts
The Mastercard switch has probably resulted in some kind of review, which has identified this as a cost-cutting opportunity.
Alison Rose did also talk about having to make “difficult decisions” to get back to sustainable profitability, so it seems like she really is looking at every aspect of the business. That’s not to credit one individual with being responsible for the closure, but with something as significant as this I doubt it would be happening without the CEO signing off. Rose did work, at one time, as the head of the commercial and private banking group of RBS so is probably more familiar with the various brands than most. Child & Co always had a very small customer base, so maybe it was decided that keeping it for prestige alone could no longer be justified.
Personally, I’d be shocked if the brand is continuing for private customers only, but without the branch. I think it’s far more likely they will be moved to Coutts.
I reckon so. Child @ Co, whatever else it was set up to do, would not currently convince a high-roller to become a private customer. It doesn’t look it, it doesn’t feel like it, and it just isn’t.
And the ease that our intrepid fintech explorers experienced in opening an account suggests that’s how RBS see it too.
An elegant disconnect and shut down at some point feels likely. And you lucky few can stick that C&C card in the drawer (where it probably is already ).
Just to add: it could be, since previous times where RBS cards have changed have resulted in Child & Co being done later (presumably due to it being a smaller brand, so RBS was prioritised).
At the last redesign, Child & Co stayed gold while a new RBS design was rolled out, then changed about 6 months later. Contactless also arrived at Child & Co around a year after RBS.
Not really true. It does offer true private current accounts with investment advisors and personal service, like any private bank.
It always was, and still is, popular in the legal profession and in accounting.
Well again, it is and always has been (for 10 years at least) possible to open an ordinary personal account at the branch as well as a private account. That’s just how it’s set up, but it’s a sort of open secret that’s not widely known.
In the context of families that have banked with them for generations, it makes complete sense. Less wealthy relatives who wouldn’t qualify for private banking, but want to keep the same bank, would be able to open a personal account.
Or people who are staring out in their careers, with promise to earn lots later (a recently-qualified barrister, for example) might join the bank as a personal client and only become a private client later.
Remember that being able to open an account online was always basically a loophole - you were “supposed” to attend the branch to open an account, even a personal one, really and that would put off most ordinary people!
At one stage it was removed from the branch selector online, presumably because it may only have been on there by accident in the first place, and from then on it got more difficult to open an account. Telephone banking (according to a thread on MSE) wouldn’t allow it and online applications also weren’t allowed unless you were an existing customer.
Probably! Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you don’t need to check your balance as you can pretty much be certain that you have “enough money” for whatever you want - and such people also often can’t be bothered to monitor their own money day-to-day: they see it as a waste of valuable time. They leave everything to their trusted accountants, who can act as attorneys on their accounts, and if they have any request they either call their accountant or private banker directly.
They aren’t going to bother themselves fussing on an app.
I expect they’ll have to replace MasterCards by June, and as such the Child & Co cards might be going too. There must be a reason why everyone, except C&Co customers, are now getting the new MCs and I doubt it’s because they haven’t yet redesigned the card.
The reason would be that there is some sort of override in place that applies to accounts with Child & Co sort codes which has not been affected by the default issuing option being a new design RBS card.
This is not to say that the cards will certainly see the switch to MasterCard, but there is plenty of evidence of people on here putting 2 and 2 together and somehow getting an answer other than 4 (the cheques reference in the letter is provable not intended to warn that branded cheque books are going; although again that in itself is also not a guarantee they will remain).
I really don’t think NatWest Group care particularly that some some normal customers have got a fancy card. If they are going to the trouble of designing different stationary the cost of using that stationary instead of standard stuff will be tiny.
True, when they have already designed it for private customers anyway.
The real question, which we haven’t got an answer to, is are they really closing the brand for private customers too? If they are, then everybody will lose it, but if they aren’t then it’s possible it could stay even without a branch.
It appears that they are definitely closing the branch, even for private customers, but private customers may be able to continue much as before except possibly with access to Coutts for in-person meetings?
If that is the case, then the brand surviving is possible - but it sounds more like that isn’t the case. Hopefully I’m wrong. I wouldn’t read too much into the letter mentioning another RBS branch, as those letters are almost completely automated in the way they are generated. They only actually measure cash and cheque deposits / withdrawals (mainly because that way they can spin the services as available at a Post Office) and the “transferred” branch could only be nominal and may even still send Child & Co branding out to customers who were originally based at Fleet Street. After all, Child & Co itself houses three sort codes already. They do know which are real private and personal Child & Co and which are normal customers, based on product type as well as sort code, so they could separate out the 15-80-00 sort code into real private customers and those who aren’t if they wanted, based on product type. I have seen an RBS product fees document that lists account types and “Child & Co current account” was on it, so there is a real private current account product at the branch which, presumably, is what some customers have.
16-00-11 is all RBS branding, 16-00-80 is Child & Co private only and 15-80-00 is a mix of Child & Co personal and private (since, originally, it was the only sort code the branch had so it was shared between personal and private).
It’s a good point that somebody makes at the MSE forum that the Holt’s Military Banking debit card is also still Visa currently, so it may be the case that they simply haven’t got around to updating their more niche designs yet. Coutts was also supposed to migrate to Mastercard but I don’t think it has yet?
So, TL;DR there may be hope that the brand stays even if the branch closes.
Yes, I agree. If the Child & Co private operation is being sunset then it seems unlikely the brand will stick around.
If it isn’t, and other than the branch closing it is BAU for the Child & Co operation, then I expect the Child & Co branded stationary to remain.
Time will tell.
One potential obstacle to just moving the ‘genuine’ C&Co customer base to Coutts would be that Coutts is (I believe) on an entirely separate instance of the NWG banking system (alongside RBS, NatWest and Ulster), unlike Child & Co and Holts which are obviously just sat on the RBS instance. Perhaps the bigger one would be separating out that 15-80-00 sort code if it is truly a mixed bag.
If they were separating out the 15-80-00 sort code, as you say, it would actually be impossible for all customers to stay on that code as it must either be allocated to Coutts, NatWest or RBS (and all of them are separately licensed banks).
My guess is they would give the “Coutts migrated” customers a new Coutts sort code on the Coutts platform instance, and migrate over their account histories. A bit like Barclays did for a few customers during ring-fencing. Even though NatWest, Coutts and RBS all run on separate instances of the banking platform, they do all use copies of the same shared platform technology - so it shouldn’t be that hard in theory to move records “across”.
The other option, of course, would be to fold the private customers into RBS Premier or merge Child & Co with Drummonds (as, that way, they would be staying with the RBS platform). What makes me think they may be willing to do a migration, though, is that it is what they did for Adam & CO’s client base - so they may well do it again.
To be honest, merging Child & Co with Drummonds would be an obvious choice that could allow everything to stay almost the same. Holt’s has already been merged with Drummonds for some operations (the Whitehall office of Holt’s closed years ago, and now Drummonds “stands in” for that).
Drummonds is also like Child & Co in that it is a standalone brand for private customers, but also technically an RBS branch that normal customers can use. Drummonds personal customers get a special chequebook, but normal debit card. That could be how Child & Co ends up if merged into Drummonds? Drummonds also runs as a “secret brand” on the RBS systems and under the RBS banking license.
However, Child & Co and Drummonds do have some differences. The Drummonds client base is significantly larger and Drummonds only has two sort codes: Drummonds personal (16-00-38) and Drummonds Private (16-00-50). There is no equivalent to “RBS Fleet Street” (16-00-11) with everything branded as normal RBS yet issued from that branch, as Child & Co has. In that sense the brand is potentially more prestigious, because the branded debit card (which does apparently exist) is not as widely in circulation. It also has lottery winner and royal connections.
If Child & Co’s customers end up folded into RBS then it would just be private customers at the same RBS branch as personal (the one mentioned in the letter) but they would likely get everything branded as RBS Premier and everybody else would get standard RBS branding.
Just to add: the other reason I think this could happen is because of the sort code distinction.
16-00-50 could be reallocated from RBS to Coutts, along with all it’s customers, and 16-00-11 could go to a normal RBS branch like with any other branch closure.
15-80-00 could then also go to a normal RBS branch, with only private customers needing a new sort code. If they are clever like Barclays were during ring-fencing, they may even be able to use a “matching” empty sort code so account numbers don’t have to change. The new sort code could then be allocated to Coutts. Either that or private customers from 15-80-00 could just get new account numbers and get allocated to a standard existing Coutts sort code.
In theory, since the 16-00-50 code has been used for all new private customers for some time, there shouldn’t be that many private accounts still using 15-80-00 as only long-standing accounts would be using it, so it’s not out of the question that they might do this as it would only require a small number of customers to change details. The 15-80-00 sort code is mostly just personal customers today. However, it would be irritating to their most long-standing and (as private banking customers) presumably most profitable and important clients! So perhaps it’s not likely.
I hope that’s easy enough to follow with all the mentions of different sort codes!
Moving customers around sort codes sounds like too much effort to me.
I think if the brand is going then the private customers will be ‘transferred’ to one of the other brands, but won’t be shifted about IT wise. Staff interacting with their account will just work off whatever instance of the system they’re on now.
).
This is interesting stuff. Incidentally, I checked out Coutts today. Regrettably they have an annual fee starting at £900.
