NatWest 'impartial advice' leads to selling own products
The impartiality of NatWest's MoneySense service has been called into question by watchdog Which?.
Which? investigators attended 20 of the sessions - but only four were found to provide impartial advice without an attempt during or after to interest customers in NatWest products.
Launched last year, the MoneySense promotion claims to offer "free, impartial and practical money management tips" in branches.
In the investigation, six sessions saw the advisor speak only about NatWest products, and two did not talk about shopping round for the best deals.
At ten sessions, the research was passed onto a NatWest customer advisor after proceeding or the advisor spoke about NatWest products after the session.
One NatWest advisor claimed the bank's own ISA Plus had the best rate on the market, when in fact it was not.
A further advisor said: "Obviously, I can't be independent like you'd maybe like me to be, and sit down, but then, that's the way it goes.
"An independent financial advisor, or mortgage broker is maybe the best option for you because they can look at the whole market and say, you want this, you want this, you want this, but obviously they're doing it for themselves."
Doug Taylor, Which? personal finance campaigns manager, said: "This would be an invaluable service if NatWest was always actually delivering on its promise of free, impartial financial guidance. However, it is being let down by the poor standard of at least some of the service being delivered."
"If schemes like this are really to benefit consumers, more must be done to ensure that advisers are properly trained to provide truly impartial financial guidance - at a time when it is needed most."
NatWest has hit out at the findings, with a spokesperson saying a review of 20 sessions was "a drop in the ocean" compared to the thousands of customers who have used the service.
She also hit out at Which? for not sharing the names of the branches where the sessions had occurred, adding the bank did carry out its own internal reviews of the service and mystery shopper exercises.
"We are standing by MoneySense and are committed to working to improve the service," she said, adding this was not possible without Which? disclosing where the poor advice had occurred.
"All our MoneySense Advisers are chosen based on their customer-service focus, they receive training accredited by independent charity, The Consumer Credit Counselling Service and as Which? says, our advisers provide an invaluable service for thousands of consumers who are benefiting from it," she said.
"Referring a consumer to a customer service adviser at the end of the MoneySense session is entirely appropriate if they have asked the MoneySense adviser for product related information. It would not be in the spirit of good customer service if we refused to help customers access this information."
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