Victims of RBS restructuring unit face ticking clock on complaints

TIME is running out for small businesses to lodge complaints over their treatment by Royal Bank of Scotland’s controversial restructuring unit.

RBS announced on Friday that the Global Restructuring Group (GRG) complaints process would close to new claims on October 22, nearly two years after its launch.

It has so far offered a total of £125m to victims of GRG, the now-defunct turnaround unit that has been accused of pushing firms towards failure in the hope of picking up assets on the cheap.

That includes the £115m offered to 3,500 customers as part of an automatic refund process which ended in July last year. A further £10m has been put forward to 370 complainants out of the 803 cases that have now been closed.

The bank said it has received 1,230 complaints from around 16,000 customers eligible to use the scheme to date.

RBS has put aside £400m in provisions to cover the GRG compensation scheme, which included set-up and running costs.

The lender said it is now receiving around six complaints a week, having declined from a peak of around 35 per week in December 2016.

The closure of the programme does not have any bearing on legal cases launched outside the scheme, and those who make a complaint after it closes will be able to use the bank’s normal channels – meaning there will not be an option to appeal to an independent third party.