RBS may take onus on refunding bank charges

The High Street bank Royal Bank of Scotland has indicated that if it loses the High Court battle over bank charges then it will be looking at taking the onus on itself to pro-actively refund bank charges to its customers. At present RBS is one of a number of banks that are fighting the court battle against the Office of Fair Trading over bank charges.

The information came from a leaked email, and the email suggested that if the bank lost the overall High Court case it would take action to calculate how much each customer was owed and would then pay the cash to them. This means that RBS customers would not have to go through the process of filing a claim for a refund on their bank charges.

The email said that RBS is ‘preparing systems and processes to pro-actively refund charges to the group’s customer base. All customer accounts that are due a refund will be calculated as accurately as possible… Any monies will be accurately accounted for and reconciled.’

However, one campaign group said: ‘The news that they may proactively repay people has to be welcomed, but I’m also worried by the idea that they will calculate these repayments themselves as they inevitably won’t do it properly.’