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NatWest has appointed former Mastercard boss Rick Haythornthwaite as its new chair, the latest development in a period of leadership turmoil at the bank as it hunts for its new permanent chief executive.
Haythornthwaite is set to join NatWest’s board in January before taking over in April when Sir Howard Davies’s term expires. A Treasury insider said Haythornthwaite was seen in UK government circles as “widely respected and experienced”. The government still holds a 38.7 per cent stake in the bank, formerly known as the Royal Bank of Scotland, after bailing it out during the financial crisis.
“I am inheriting a very different NatWest compared to my predecessor; one that is more customer-focused, financially resilient and well-positioned to maintain its recent strong performance,” said Haythornthwaite, who is chair of the AA and Ocado Group.
He will arrive at a critical time for NatWest, after a summer of discontent triggered by its private bank Coutts’s decision to close the bank accounts of Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader. Chief executive Alison Rose departed in July after admitting to inaccurately briefing a BBC journalist about the reason behind the closures, which an incendiary dossier obtained by the Brexiter revealed was due in large part to his politics. Coutts’s chief executive Peter Flavel left a day later, taking responsibility for the decision to close the accounts.
One of Haythornthwaite’s first jobs will be to lead the search for Rose’s replacement. Former Bank of Ireland chief executive Francesca McDonagh, Lloyds Banking Group’s chief financial officer William Chalmers and Paul Thwaite, who was appointed Rose’s successor for an initial 12 months, are all seen as potential candidates.
Haythornthwaite’s appointment was first reported by Sky News.
Haythornthwaite was Mastercard’s global chair for 14 years until 2020 and served as chair of energy company Centrica from 2014 to 2019. He is expected to stay on as chair of Ocado after the company acknowledged his new appointment in a brief stock market announcement. NatWest said that he would step down from most of his other directorships and move to a non-executive role at the AA before taking up Davies’s mantle.
“I am very pleased by the choice the board has made and am confident that Rick’s experience and range of skills will complement and further strengthen the NatWest board in the years to come,” said Davies, who first announced that he would depart to avoid breaching UK corporate governance codes at the bank’s annual general meeting in April.
Travers Smith, the law firm reviewing the closure of Farage’s accounts and the possible leaking of confidential information, will miss this week’s deadline for completing the first phase of its work, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
The Farage affair sparked a free-speech controversy as well as regulatory scrutiny. The UK financial regulator this week vowed to take “prompt action” against any banks found to be unfairly refusing services to politicians and their families.
The Financial Conduct Authority, which will have to approve the new chair, declined to comment.
Shares in NatWest have fallen almost 16 per cent since the start of the year, surpassing the 12 per cent drop that domestic rival Lloyds Banking Group has suffered, despite both benefiting from the higher interest rate environment.
Additional reporting by Laura Noonan and Laura Onita in London