It’s fair to say that June wasn’t the best month for NatWest.

The problems for them, and the rest of the Royal Bank of Scotland banking group, started on the evening of the 19^th when a standard upgrade to the software used by the bank for the batch scheduling of payments went wrong.

In the process of reversing the upgrade the schedule for the whole queue of payments – estimated to be in the millions – was wiped out. It took a further three days for the issues to be corrected during which time several million more transactions were not processed. Read More »

This post is provided by our partner Headstream, the social brand agency behind the Social Brands 100.

first direct doesn’t hire bankers, says its Head of Public Relations, Amanda Brown, “From the beginning, we wanted great communicators who could be taught how to bank.” Founded in 1989 as a division of HSBC, customers’ needs have sat at the centre of the business from the beginning, she says.

first direct ranked 27^th in last year’s Social Brands 100 and was the only financial services brand nominated; this year six other financial services brands are also in the running. Amanda spoke to us recently about what’s changed since last year and what she expects to see in the year ahead. Read More »