Child & Co RBS Branch to close

[Deleted User]

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Marchitiello said:

I have not received the letter yet, which sounds strange.

Mine is a rewards account, so pretty active, with good volumes and values of transactions…

So is mine but I got the letter. I wouldn’t meet the requirements for RBS private however. Do you?

They may well transfer Child to the Drummond branch and operate it from there.

They've already said the accounts are being transferred to the Royal Bank branch in Victoria.
Given Drummonds is already a mix of standard and private; they could have just moved all there. 

I fall around their Premier Criteria but not officially premier. 

The Personal Bankers were already shared between the two branches. Some of Drummonds’  (I know the branch manager as well) Private Bankers are shared with Coutts. I start to think that probably anyone that were not assigned /liaise directly with a personal banker have been issued the standard letter and moved to Victoria. The one with personal bankers (not private) will potentially receive a later communications with different instructions. 

Very much doubt the 15-80-00 sort code is being split between different branches.

Apart from anything, that'd involve informing at least one set of customer's their sort code would be about to change, I'd expect more than 6 months notice of such a thing.

I doubt that the Drummonds brand is that much more secure than the the Child brand. They are clearly simplifying their brands and phasing the Royal Bank brands outside Scotland. Adam and Co is their Scottish wealth brand; Coutts elsewhere.

WillPS

Deleted_User said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Marchitiello said:

I have not received the letter yet, which sounds strange.

Mine is a rewards account, so pretty active, with good volumes and values of transactions…

So is mine but I got the letter. I wouldn’t meet the requirements for RBS private however. Do you?

They may well transfer Child to the Drummond branch and operate it from there.

They've already said the accounts are being transferred to the Royal Bank branch in Victoria.
Given Drummonds is already a mix of standard and private; they could have just moved all there. 

I fall around their Premier Criteria but not officially premier. 

The Personal Bankers were already shared between the two branches. Some of Drummonds’  (I know the branch manager as well) Private Bankers are shared with Coutts. I start to think that probably anyone that were not assigned /liaise directly with a personal banker have been issued the standard letter and moved to Victoria. The one with personal bankers (not private) will potentially receive a later communications with different instructions. 

Very much doubt the 15-80-00 sort code is being split between different branches.

Apart from anything, that'd involve informing at least one set of customer's their sort code would be about to change, I'd expect more than 6 months notice of such a thing.

I doubt that the Drummonds brand is that much more secure than the the Child brand. They are clearly simplifying their brands and phasing the Royal Bank brands outside Scotland. Adam and Co is their Scottish wealth brand; Coutts elsewhere.

That's kind of beside the point though - whatever brand they choose to use and not, they can't split a sort code between multiple banking licenses.

If they want to move the posh customers to Coutts, the only way is to move them off 15-80-00 or move all the peasants off 15-80-00. It can't be both Coutts and RBS.

That kind of restructuring falls outside the normal playbook for closing a branch down - which is why I doubt it'll happen at this juncture (at least).

Marchitiello

WillPS said:

Deleted_User said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Marchitiello said:

I have not received the letter yet, which sounds strange.

Mine is a rewards account, so pretty active, with good volumes and values of transactions…

So is mine but I got the letter. I wouldn’t meet the requirements for RBS private however. Do you?

They may well transfer Child to the Drummond branch and operate it from there.

They've already said the accounts are being transferred to the Royal Bank branch in Victoria.
Given Drummonds is already a mix of standard and private; they could have just moved all there. 

I fall around their Premier Criteria but not officially premier. 

The Personal Bankers were already shared between the two branches. Some of Drummonds’  (I know the branch manager as well) Private Bankers are shared with Coutts. I start to think that probably anyone that were not assigned /liaise directly with a personal banker have been issued the standard letter and moved to Victoria. The one with personal bankers (not private) will potentially receive a later communications with different instructions. 

Very much doubt the 15-80-00 sort code is being split between different branches.

Apart from anything, that'd involve informing at least one set of customer's their sort code would be about to change, I'd expect more than 6 months notice of such a thing.

I doubt that the Drummonds brand is that much more secure than the the Child brand. They are clearly simplifying their brands and phasing the Royal Bank brands outside Scotland. Adam and Co is their Scottish wealth brand; Coutts elsewhere.

That's kind of beside the point though - whatever brand they choose to use and not, they can't split a sort code between multiple banking licenses.

If they want to move the posh customers to Coutts, the only way is to move them off 15-80-00 or move all the peasants off 15-80-00. It can't be both Coutts and RBS.

That kind of restructuring falls outside the normal playbook for closing a branch down - which is why I doubt it'll happen at this juncture (at least).

But Drummonds, Child & Co, and RBS are all operating just under the RBS Banking license, these are simply branches. So some customers could be serviced by the team at Drummonds (effectively the same personnel was already servicing customers in both branches for the last few years) whilst customers without personal bankers will be simply told to use the Victoria Branch (so if you do need to see someone in Branch, you will be officially told to go there, although as the letter says, you could use any other NatWest or RBS branch, thus Drummonds as well) 

Again, as I frequent the Drummonds branch very often, that branch is still quite active and just went through a massive and costly refurbishment, so pretty sure that for the fore sable future it will still be there.

[Deleted User]

Child was refurbished only a few years ago.

RBS have stated no account shall be transferred to another sort code. 

WillPS

Marchitiello said:

WillPS said:

Deleted_User said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Marchitiello said:

I have not received the letter yet, which sounds strange.

Mine is a rewards account, so pretty active, with good volumes and values of transactions…

So is mine but I got the letter. I wouldn’t meet the requirements for RBS private however. Do you?

They may well transfer Child to the Drummond branch and operate it from there.

They've already said the accounts are being transferred to the Royal Bank branch in Victoria.
Given Drummonds is already a mix of standard and private; they could have just moved all there. 

I fall around their Premier Criteria but not officially premier. 

The Personal Bankers were already shared between the two branches. Some of Drummonds’  (I know the branch manager as well) Private Bankers are shared with Coutts. I start to think that probably anyone that were not assigned /liaise directly with a personal banker have been issued the standard letter and moved to Victoria. The one with personal bankers (not private) will potentially receive a later communications with different instructions. 

Very much doubt the 15-80-00 sort code is being split between different branches.

Apart from anything, that'd involve informing at least one set of customer's their sort code would be about to change, I'd expect more than 6 months notice of such a thing.

I doubt that the Drummonds brand is that much more secure than the the Child brand. They are clearly simplifying their brands and phasing the Royal Bank brands outside Scotland. Adam and Co is their Scottish wealth brand; Coutts elsewhere.

That's kind of beside the point though - whatever brand they choose to use and not, they can't split a sort code between multiple banking licenses.

If they want to move the posh customers to Coutts, the only way is to move them off 15-80-00 or move all the peasants off 15-80-00. It can't be both Coutts and RBS.

That kind of restructuring falls outside the normal playbook for closing a branch down - which is why I doubt it'll happen at this juncture (at least).

But Drummonds, Child & Co, and RBS are all operating just under the RBS Banking license, these are simply branches. So some customers could be serviced by the team at Drummonds (effectively the same personnel was already servicing customers in both branches for the last few years) whilst customers without personal bankers will be simply told to use the Victoria Branch (so if you do need to see someone in Branch, you will be officially told to go there, although as the letter says, you could use any other NatWest or RBS branch, thus Drummonds as well) 

Again, as I frequent the Drummonds branch very often, that branch is still quite active and just went through a massive and costly refurbishment, so pretty sure that for the fore sable future it will still be there.

Yes, Drummonds and Child & Co could be merged operationally. There's nothing to suggest that is actually what's happening though - moving the 15-80-00 sort code to notionally be registered at Drummonds would certainly have been a strong clue.

The RBS branch in Nottingham was also fitted out only 5 or so years ago, as was the Child & Co branch and no doubt others among the list of branches that are closing.

The high street banking market is shrinking extremely quickly currently - it's notable that Nationwide are running an advertising campaign marketing their commitment to the high street - and yet even they are only committing as far as January next year.

[Deleted User]

WillPS said:

Deleted_User said:

WillPS said:

Marchitiello said:

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

Marchitiello said:

I have not received the letter yet, which sounds strange.

Mine is a rewards account, so pretty active, with good volumes and values of transactions…

So is mine but I got the letter. I wouldn’t meet the requirements for RBS private however. Do you?

They may well transfer Child to the Drummond branch and operate it from there.

They've already said the accounts are being transferred to the Royal Bank branch in Victoria.
Given Drummonds is already a mix of standard and private; they could have just moved all there. 

I fall around their Premier Criteria but not officially premier. 

The Personal Bankers were already shared between the two branches. Some of Drummonds’  (I know the branch manager as well) Private Bankers are shared with Coutts. I start to think that probably anyone that were not assigned /liaise directly with a personal banker have been issued the standard letter and moved to Victoria. The one with personal bankers (not private) will potentially receive a later communications with different instructions. 

Very much doubt the 15-80-00 sort code is being split between different branches.

Apart from anything, that'd involve informing at least one set of customer's their sort code would be about to change, I'd expect more than 6 months notice of such a thing.

I doubt that the Drummonds brand is that much more secure than the the Child brand. They are clearly simplifying their brands and phasing the Royal Bank brands outside Scotland. Adam and Co is their Scottish wealth brand; Coutts elsewhere.

That's kind of beside the point though - whatever brand they choose to use and not, they can't split a sort code between multiple banking licenses.

If they want to move the posh customers to Coutts, the only way is to move them off 15-80-00 or move all the peasants off 15-80-00. It can't be both Coutts and RBS.

That kind of restructuring falls outside the normal playbook for closing a branch down - which is why I doubt it'll happen at this juncture (at least).

I didn't say they would split a sort code across branches nor banking licenses...Any Coutts sort code that works with a modulus check for 15-80-00 would work ; moving across only the HNW leaving the dregs with RBS Victoria . Rinse and repeat with Drummonds further down the line. 

WillPS

I understand what modulus checking is but I don't understand this concept of having both a Coutts sort code as well as 15-80-00. Have I misunderstood or is that actually what you're suggesting?

gsmh

Not sure I completely understand. When Lloyds and TSB merged, my TSB branch closed and my account was serviced by a Lloyds branch. That Lloyds branch used sort codes in the 30.xx.xx (Lloyds) and 77.xx.xx (TSB) range - and that is still the case today. Given that a branch doesn't usually communicate directly with a customer these days I'm sure branding based on sort code is completely feasible.

WillPS

gsmh said:

Not sure I completely understand. When Lloyds and TSB merged, my TSB branch closed and my account was serviced by a Lloyds branch. That Lloyds branch used sort codes in the 30.xx.xx (Lloyds) and 77.xx.xx (TSB) range - and that is still the case today. Given that a branch doesn't usually communicate directly with a customer these days I'm sure branding based on sort code is completely feasible.

It absolutely is - and the branch on Fleet Street had been doing this for a while by using 16-00-80 for new private customers and 16-00-11 for customers wanting RBS accounts. Sending 16-00-80 customers to one of their private brands and 16-00-11 to a random branch of RBS would have been simple enough.

The issue is that the 15-80-00 sort code predates either of those sort codes, and wasn't closed off to new applicants - so it's a mixture of some of the older extremely wealthy Child & Co clients, clients who Child & Co genuinely looked to woo but were not yet themselves particularly wealthy and the riff-raff like most of us who just applied through the RBS website and selected the branch we wanted carefully. The latter 2 categories are particularly troublesome to separate as they're likely to be using the same product types (Select/Reward etc).

Time will tell what happens - but I'm pretty convinced that moving customers off 15-80-00 en-masse won't be part of what happens. My best bet is the address on the cheque changes but everything else stays the same.

Marchitiello

I think you are overthinking this… sort code will be “registered” to a central location in Cheltenham, customer profiles could still be serviced from various places.. my own Barclays Branch closed many years ago, and my sort code got moved twice already to different branches, so on paper they now serve multiple sort codes at the same branch. However, that branch never had a Premier counter, so when I was upgraded to a Premier account, I received a letter about the benefit of using the nearest Premier counter at another branch… that is effectively what I was saying, no matter where they register the sort code, some customers will be invited to liaising directly with their Personal Banker at a chosen location. Most of this will happen over the phone nowadays, but surely you could get an appointment in branch.

PS: wife and a friend that had Child’s account but effectively never use them, have received the letter. Myself and my teen son (has had an account somehow linked to mine) that use regularly our account, have not had the letter. Also, both of us have accounts at Child and Drummonds, and recently have used Drummonds as a visiting branch, so not sure if that is also a factor.