RBS chief worries about rising interest rates

Three years after she took over the top role of Ross McEwan, the Royal Bank of Scotland, or RBS, with the name Natwest, has caused concern for business about confidence to grow. One of the challenges we need to recognize is that the environment of inflation, higher interest rates and rising interest rates is not something that business owners and families have had to deal with for a long time. Interest rates were cut sharply during the financial crisis in 2008 -- 09, when RBS had the biggest balance sheet of any bank in the world, ran into serious difficulties with exposure to bad lending and had to be bailed out with a 45 billion capital injection by the UK government.

People are really anxious and worried about all those trends, so we encourage them to come and talk to us because there are things we can help with, she explained.

On very low savings rates for customers of Natwest and Royal Bank of Scotland and its Ulster Bank brand - only 0.15% on the premium saver account and 0.45% on ISA cash -- the chief executive responded: "We have to balance all those elements." We've always said we'll pass on rates to make sure we're doing that responsibly and fairly.