The Royal Bank of Scotland has written letters to thousands of small businesses informing them that their previously free bank accounts will now be charged at a flat rate of £10 a month.

The bank, which is seeking £12bn in funds via a share issue, denies that the move is in any way related to the problems they face as a result of the global credit crunch.

Rather, according to a spokesperson, the intent is simply to bring ‘legacy’ accounts into line with RBS’s current product range.

Small business owners are not convinced however, with the Federation of Small Businesses saying that it was ‘totally wrong for RBS to take things out on the small and medium size enterprise sector when the bank is still making big profits’.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Bank Charges, Business Banking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.