RBS and NatWest's Customer Charter Interim Progress Results

We have continued to open our busiest branches on Saturdays, and at least 846 have been open every Saturday so far this year.

We have continued to open longer in 205 of our busiest branches. These branches are open on average 45.5 hours per week. We have reviewed demand throughout our branch network to ensure we're open when customers need us.

We measured queuing times in our 300 busiest branches in May and June, and found that 79.6% of customers were served within 5 minutes, with the average queuing time being just under 3.5 minutes. These figures have improved from 75% and 4 minutes in the last 6 months. Across all our branches an average of 86.1% of customers were served within 5 minutes, but we know there are still times and places where customers wait much longer, and we have more work to do to reduce queuing.

8 out of 10 customers continue to rate us friendly and helpful. We're working hard to reach our target. In the last 6 months we have set new service standards for all staff in our branches. We will be implementing similar standards in our telephone centres in July. This will help us provide consistent service, no matter how customers contact us.

We have simplified all the brochures and leaflets in our banking halls, and these have been available since February 2011, which means we have achieved the goal we set last year. However, we have set ourselves a new goal this year of simplifying much more of our communication.

We are on target to rewrite all the remaining literature and to refresh all the key web pages for our main products this year. We'll have rewritten more than 270 standard letters by the end of the year as well. The remaining standard letters will be completed early in 2012.

We're doing all of this based on feedback from our customers to make sure our communications are straightforward and easy to understand.

We issued 236,314 Personal Account Statements between January and June and are on track to issue 1 million by December. These statements give customers an overview of their account activity for the previous 12 months. The overview lets customers see how they managed their money and gives guidance on ways to make their money work harder for them.

All our telephone banking centres continue to be in the UK, with staff on hand to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In our telephone banking centres - open 24/7 to help customers with their day-to-day banking - we answered 91.9% of calls in less than 60 seconds. If we also include lending and credit card centres, the proportion is 89.4%. These are good scores, but we're aiming to do better. To help us achieve our goal by the end of 2011, we're recruiting more staff in our credit card centres.

In line with our security promise, this year we have refunded all customers who had money taken from their accounts fraudulently when banking with us online or on their mobile phone.

Our free, market-leading security software has been downloaded 782,870 times so far this year. None of the customers who have downloaded the software this year has been a victim of fraud when banking online with us.

We have sent 692,176 replacement debit cards within 24 hours to customers whose card had been lost or stolen. Unfortunately, in two cases we missed this deadline by one day.

Since 9 May, we have sent all replacement cards by first-class post so that they reach customers as quickly as possible.

The 19,870 customers who needed a new PIN were sent one within 24 hours, with a new card within 48 hours, in line with our security policy.

Since February, we have offered our Emergency Cash service, free of charge, to customers who have lost their cards or had them stolen. This unique service has helped 14,491 customers so far this year by giving them instant access to their cash, up to an agreed limit, through our UK ATM network

Since making this commitment we have not increased credit limits for any customers who are struggling to meet the payments on their credit cards.

Our dedicated team of 84 staff continue to monitor and help customers facing financial difficulty. So far this year, the team has supported 101,390 customers by offering them guidance to help reduce their debts

Our Act Now Alerts service helps customers to avoid unnecessary charges by giving them time to move money into their current account. So far, 714,810 customers have signed up for this service. This year alone 353,116 customers have registered and, by the end of June, we had sent them 909,251 text alerts.

Mortgages for first-time buyers have continued to be available throughout 2011, allowing customers to borrow up to 90% of a property's value.

Since 14 May, we have been keeping offers open for 6 rather than 3 months. This has given first-time buyers more time to complete their purchase, as we know that buying a home can be a time-consuming and stressful process.

Total net mortgage-lending so far this year amounts to more than £3.3bn. We have approved £809m of lending to support first-time buyers. Of this, £235m was through our 90% offer.

We are providing banking services in 148 locations where we're the last bank in town. However, in one location, our landlord did not allow us to renew our lease and we have had to close. We will continue to monitor the availability of banking services across the country to ensure we fulfil this commitment.

We have 19 mobile banks serving more than 400 communities and travelling an average of 7,000 miles every week.

We have continued to support primary and secondary school children by providing 20,688 lessons designed to develop good money-management skills for everyday life. So far this year, we estimate that 235,005 children have benefited from these lessons. In addition, MoneySense materials are available online for all schools to use, free of charge.

We're supporting local good causes again this year through CommunityForce - a new programme launched in July. Over the coming months we'll be working in partnership with local people and communities to support projects nominated by our customers.

All of our staff have again been encouraged to take a day of paid leave to volunteer in their local communities. So far this year, 3,644 days have been taken. Opportunities for staff to support their local communities will continue over the remainder of the year as well as the chance to support national charity fundraising events such as Children in Need in November

59.2% of our customers were satisfied with the way their complaint was handled. We are committed to improving the way we handle complaints, and 8,000 members of staff who deal with complaints will have received significant additional training by the end of this year. We are currently piloting a new complaints handling process, with early results suggesting satisfaction levels much closer to our target levels.

Fixing the causes of complaints remains a priority for us. We are continually reviewing the root causes of all types of complaint and developing solutions to them. We are addressing the five most common complaints in the following ways:

1. 1. Charges relating to Current Accounts
   We have launched a new text and email message service, Act Now Alerts, that gives customers time to move money and avoid unnecessary charges. This is in addition to the existing text service alerting customers when their balance falls to an amount they choose. Over 700,000 customers have signed up for Act Now Alerts so far. We will also continue to review our charging structure regularly, in response to customers' feedback and particularly focusing on our customer communications and our charging policies.
2. 2. Problems with Payment Protection Insurance (PPI)
   Following the recent Judicial Review we have appointed a specialist team to address complaints about PPI. We are working carefully and quickly through all claims to ensure customers get a fair outcome within the timeframes set by the FSA. We also have a new webpage which enables customers to lodge complaints about PPI.
3. 3. Charges relating to credit cards
   In January we introduced the option for customers to pay a fixed amount of their credit card balance by direct debit. We have introduced a one day grace period for payments following bank holidays, and have also extended the period for unused direct debits from 1 year to 5 years. In response to customers telling us our timescales for payments are difficult to understand we sent a payment leaflet to cardholders in July explaining payment methods, timescales and ways to avoid late fees.
4. 4. Complaints about staff knowledge
   The biggest single cause of this type of complaint is that our staff are not giving customers enough information about charges and how to avoid them. We are committed to fixing this and are giving staff new information about our charging policies and about how they can help customers to manage their money better.
5. 5. Collection processes
   Customers sometimes find the repayment plans we set up difficult to understand. We have a specialist team to pinpoint reasons customers are unable to stick to their repayment plans and to help them get back on track. This team also identifies common themes and finds ways to address them. We are currently working to simplify repayment arrangements and make our letters easier to understand.

We've held 32 events so far this year. These have brought 153 staff, including executives, face to face with 380 customers to gain a better understanding of their frustrations and the ways we can improve. All staff that attend these events take away what they've heard and use these insights to improve. We also monitor what customers are saying about us on social media and circulate this regularly to 200 staff. In addition, we continue to run large regular surveys to understand customers' views. In the first half of the year, we have heard from 139,741 customers in this way.

We will do specific research in September to ensure the Charter continues to focus on the things that matter to customers, and we will use the results to inform the next iteration of the Charter in 2012. We know that what we really need to do now is to achieve each of our existing goals in full.