NatWest spent 17 years partly owned by British taxpayers
On 30 May 2025 NatWest became a fully private bank again, ending a 17-year stretch that began with a £45 billion government rescue. At one point the state held 84% of the group. It was a long fall for a lender once ranked Britain's most profitable, with roots reaching back to a Nottingham bank of 1658.
The modern bank came from a 1968 merger of National Provincial and Westminster, two Victorian institutions that had swallowed dozens of rivals, and it began trading on 1 January 1970 as the world's fifth-largest bank. Its three-arrowhead logo stood for the District, National Provincial and Westminster banks woven together. It helped launch the Access credit card in 1972 and the Switch debit card in 1988, created the Piggy Account for children in 1983, and in 1980 finished the 600-foot NatWest Tower in London, the tallest building in the UK until Canary Wharf rose a decade later.
The late 1980s and 1990s were rough. After the 1987 crash and the Blue Arrow affair, a government report forced out several board members, including chairman Lord Boardman. In 1997 its investment arm, NatWest Markets, uncovered a loss first put at £50 million and then raised to £90.5 million. It bought Gleacher Partners for $135 million in 1996 and sold it back to the founder three years later for $4 million.
In 1999 a planned £10.7 billion merger with the insurer Legal & General sent the shares sliding and invited predators. The small Bank of Scotland launched a hostile bid, and the Royal Bank of Scotland topped it with £21 billion, completing in 2000 the biggest takeover Britain had seen. NatWest kept its brand and licence, but merging back offices cost over 18,000 jobs.
Then came 2008. The state recapitalised RBS, chief executive Fred Goodwin, architect of the NatWest deal, resigned, and European rules forced years of attempts to sell off branches. The group itself took the NatWest name in 2020, and today the bank says it serves around 19 million customers.
Source: NatWest
