Business Research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Research - Essay Example NatWest traces its origin to the year 1968 when the National Provincial Bank merged with the Westminster Bank. NatWest has remained one of the â€Å"biggest four clearing banks† in the United Kingdom and it has opened over 1,600 branches and 3,400 automated teller machines across the UK (Jones, 2012, p.258). The bank currently has nearly 7.5 million customers and over 850,000 accounts specifically tailored for small businesses. It operates through a subsidiary bank known as Ulster Bank in the republic of Ireland. As per the year 2003 NatWest was a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBS. However, it has currently become the ultimate holding company of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS). Basing on this, it is evidently cleat that the shareholders, competitors and interest groups of RBS are directly linked to the National Westminster Bank. The government of the United Kingdom acquired majority of the shares of RBS in 2008 to become the majority shareholder of the bank. Currently, the UK government owns over 67% of the ordinary shares floated by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group in the stock market. OWNERSHIP Government Ownership of National Westminster Bank As already stated, NatWest is the main holding company of the Royal Bank of Scotland. ... The government went further to acquire B shares in December thus making the cumulative government ownership of the RBS Group to stand at 81.15 percent (Waller, 2000, p.31). Stephen Hester is the chief executive officer of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a company which by extension owns the National Westminster Bank. Since the majority of the shareholding comes from the government whose main source of income is the taxpayer’s money, it is also true to say that NatWest is a bank owned by the public (Steiner, 2000, p.18). UK Financial Investments Ltd (UKFI) was then charged with the mandate of overseeing the government’s investments in financial institution including Royal Bank of Scotland Group. In connection to the desire of promoting economic stability and healthy competition in the banking sector, the UK government has given UKFI the duty to manage the orderly but active disposing of government’s shareholding in some of these institutions. Norwich Union is a compos ite insurer and owns about 1.12 percent of the original shares of NatWest Bank. Before the â€Å"takeover† of the company by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the managers of this bank were in full support of the bid presented by the RBS. COMPETITION NatWest, which by extension refers to the Royal Bank of Scotland, faces competition from several banks that include HSBC, Credit Suisse Bank, Barclays Bank and Standard Chartered. About HSBC: It is ranked as the top most banks in the whole world. According to the financial statements of the bank released in the first quarter of 2011, this bank recorded the largest profit of 4,153 billion dollars. It highly trusted in emerging markets such as China. This factor