RBS ranked near bottom of table in search for Britain's best bank

The Royal Bank of Scotland has been ranked as one of the worst UK financial institutions - by its own customers.

RBS was second last in the poll.

The Edinburgh-based bank, which is still majority-owned by the tax payer, was second last in a poll for Britain’s Best Bank, behind only M&S Bank, which held the bottom spot for the second year in a row.

RBS has recently come under fire from customers - especially those in rural areas - as it unveiled plans to close 62 of its remaining 151 branches in Scotland. The branch closures, along with poor customer service and “no thrills” products, saw the bank’s customer satisfaction score fall by three percentage points to 77.8 per cent.

The customer satisfaction survey, run by website Smart Money People, polled over 24,000 UK consumers to help find the UK’s best and worst financial providers.

Edinburgh-based Lloyds Banking Group also performed poorly, with Lloyds Bank and Halifax, as well as previously owned TSB, all dropping four spots. Bank of Scotland did not feature on the table because only 60 responses were received - under the threshold of 100. However, based on the limited responses, the bank scored a respectable 82.7 per cent which would have placed them 9th.

Banking newcomer Starling Bank was named ‘Best British Bank’, taking the title from first direct which has held it since 2015.

Mike Fotis, founder of Smart Money People, said: “The results of the British Bank Awards 2018 help to highlight an increasingly vibrant financial services landscape, with a number of firms launched in the last few years taking home awards, alongside some of the UK’s largest financial firms.”

NatWest is the only bank to see its overall position improve, rising to sixth place, and also takes home ‘Best Banking App’. While HSBC remains in thirteenth spot, its customer satisfaction score increased to 79.8 per cent, up from 71.2 per cent in 2017.

Edinburgh-based Money Dashboard also took home the ‘Best Personal Finance App’ award.

However, HSBC’s joint venture with M&S saw its customer satisfaction score plummet from 70.6 per cent in 2017 to 56.3 per cent in 2018, with its current account in particular coming in for criticism from consumers.

A spokesman for RBS said: “Our own customer feedback process is helping us to listen, learn and react quickly to customer concerns and also to better understand what we are doing well. For example our award winning mobile app is highly rated by our customers. While we know we still have more to do, we are working hard to better meet the needs of our customers.”

A Royal Bank of Scotland spokesman said, “Our own customer feedback process is helping us to listen, learn and react quickly to customer concerns and also to better understand what we are doing well.

“For example our award winning mobile app is highly rated by our customers.

“While we know we still have more to do, we are working hard to better meet the needs of our customers.”