How NatWest met its match with Black Watch
P.D. writes: I am Secretary of the Newcastle upon Tyne branch of the Black Watch Association. Our long-serving treasurer sadly passed away in 2020 and the only other signatory on our NatWest account was also deceased. In July 2020, we elected a new treasurer and notified the bank. NatWest provided various documents, which we submitted, but later when our treasurer enquired he was told the forms were not completed correctly and further forms were needed.
THE Black Watch – now absorbed into the Royal Regiment of Scotland – has a long and distinguished history in battle, but your association came close to defeat at the hands of NatWest.
Frequent visits to the bank were always met with a fresh problem or requests for further documentation including passports. NatWest would accept deposits from you but banned withdrawals, and you have been in banking limbo for 18 months. I asked officials at the bank’s head office to step in. They stuck to their guns over the forms they said were incomplete, but they also cleared up every single outstanding issue simply by speaking to your treasurer. Your account is now fully operational, and NatWest added that ‘the consistency of our communication could have been better, and to apologise for this aspect of the experience, we have credited the account of the Black Watch Association with £250 as a gesture of goodwill’. Honour preserved all round.