RBS boss commits to providing Friends Against Scams training to one million people by 2020

Royal Bank of Scotland boss Ross McEwan has announced that his staff will provide training to one million people across the UK by 2020 in a new initiative aimed at keeping the public safe from fraudsters.

The Edinburgh-based group said its ‘Friends Against Scams’ training will now be available to customers and non-customers of Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, and Ulster Bank, helping them to understand how to spot a scam and empowering them to help prevent relatives, neighbours and friends from becoming victims.

RBS said it has consistently supported the UK Government’s Joint Fraud Task Force and its focus on financial education through initiatives such as Take Five and Friends Against Scams.

Currently 22,000 NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland colleagues are Friends Against Scams ambassadors and this will be increased to 40,000 colleagues by the end of 2018 and the training is now being rolled out nationally.

There are a number of ways to undertake the training, including:

RBS CEO Ross McEwan said: “Friends Against Scams Training has being incredibly beneficial to our colleagues and now I want customers and the public to be able to experience the benefits of the training too. Keeping our customers safe and secure is a bank wide priority. Having trained 22,000 colleagues across the bank we are already seeing a real impact which has helped our customers avoid becoming victims. However, more still needs to be done and we are proud to commit to training one million customers and non-customers across the UK by 2020.”