The Board of Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) have revealed the 11 organisations that meet the eligibility criteria for the Incentivised Switching Scheme.

BCR is the independent body established to implement the £775m Royal Bank of Scotland State Aid Alternative Remedies Package. The packages are a result of RBS failing to divest its Williams & Glyn Branch, and the UK government’s recognition of the need for greater competition in the bank leasing sector.

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The purpose of the Incentivised Switching Scheme is to provide funding of up to a maximum total of £275m to SME customers of the business previously described as Williams & Glyn, to switch their business current accounts and loans to challenger institutions.

The full list of eligible applicants are as follows:

  1. Arbuthnot Latham & Co
  2. Clydesdale Bank
  3. Co-operative Bank
  4. Hampden & Co.
  5. Metro Bank
  6. Monzo bank
  7. Nationwide Building Society
  8. Santander UK
  9. Starling Bank
  10. Svenska Handelsbanken
  11. TSB Bank

Monzo Bank and Nationwide Building Society were judged to have met all eligibility criteria but are not yet to launch a business current account offering. BCR are also considering a second application window in late Spring 2019, with more information to be provided early this year.

Four organisations were not, at the time of application, live members of the Current Account Switch-Service (“CASS”), which was one of a number of pre-set entry conditions agreed between the UK government and the European Commission when inviting application for the Incentivised Switching Scheme. All four have stated confidence that their membership of CASS will be fully operational early in 2019.

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Godfrey Cromwell, BCR’s chairman, said: “It’s very good news that a broad selection of organisations have stepped forward and made a diversity of offers right across the SME client-base. Today’s announcement marks an important milestone for Incentivised Switching.”

BCR will now engage with the organisations with reviewed offers in order to progress contracting and verification of operational readiness.

On completing these processes, a dedicated website will place the organisations’ offers in front of former Williams and Glyn’s SME customers at the end of February 2019.

Cromwell said: “Customers will be the real decision-makers here. We look forward to getting through the contracting stage and seeing these offers made public so that customers can react. We anticipate that a further application round in Q2 2019 will widen the range of offers still further.”

Seperate from the Incentivised Switching Scheme is the Capability & Innovation Funds Pools A, B and C, with results from those applications to be announced over the course of 2019. Challenger banks for these funds include Metro Bank, CYBG, Starling, TSB, and Santander.