National Westminster

National Westminster Bank Plc

Industry	Financial Services
Founded	1968; 49 years ago (1968)
Headquarters	135 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3UR
Key people	Sir Howard Davies, Chairman Ross McEwan, Chief Executive
Products	Banking and Insurance
Number of employees	33,300
Parent	Royal Bank of Scotland Group
Website	www.natwest.com

National Westminster Bank, commonly known as NatWest, is a large retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank (established 1833 as National Provincial Bank of England) and Westminster Bank (established 1834 as London County and Westminster Bank). Since 2000 it has been part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, it has a large network of over 960 branches and 3,400 cash machines across Great Britain and offers 24-hour Actionline telephone and online banking services. Today it has more than 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts. In Ireland it operates through its Ulster Bank subsidiary.

The bank's origins date back to 1658 with the foundation of Smith's Bank of Nottingham. The creation of the modern bank was announced in 1968, and National Westminster Bank Limited commenced trading on 1 January 1970, after the statutory process of integration had been completed in 1969. The famous three arrowheads symbol was adopted as the new bank's logo; it is said to symbolise either the circulation of money in the financial system or the bank's three constituents, National Provincial Bank, Westminster Bank, and District Bank (established 1829): the latter had been taken over by National Provincial Bank in 1962 and was allowed to operate under its own name until the formation of National Westminster Bank. The District, National Provincial, and Westminster Banks were fully integrated in the new firm's structure, but Coutts & Co. private bankers (a 1920 National Provincial acquisition, established 1692), Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland (a 1917 Westminster acquisition, established 1836) and the Isle of Man Bank (a 1961 National Provincial acquisition, established 1865) continued as separate operations. Westminster Foreign Bank (established 1913) was restyled International Westminster Bank in 1973. Duncan Stirling, outgoing chairman of Westminster Bank, became first chairman of the fifth largest bank in the world. In 1969 David Robarts, former chairman of National Provincial, assumed Stirling's position. In 1975 it was one of the first London banks to open a representative office in Scotland. It was a founder member of the Joint Credit Card Company (with Lloyds Bank, Midland Bank and Williams & Glyn's Bank) which launched the Access credit card (now part of MasterCard) in 1972 and in 1976 it introduced the Servicetill cash machine. The same banks, excluding Lloyds, were later responsible for the introduction of the Switch debit card (later branded Maestro) in 1988.