"Natwest Group": Purchase of Sainsbury’s Bank Assets & Liabilities

NatWest Group: Purchase of Sainsbury’s Bank Assets & Liabilities

Banking
20.06.2024 12:50 pm

Natwest Group plc (“NatWest Group”) today announces that it has entered into an agreement with Sainsbury’s Bank plc (“Sainsbury’s Bank”) to acquire the retail banking assets and liabilities of Sainsbury’s Bank which comprises its outstanding credit card, unsecured personal loan and saving accounts.

NatWest Group expects to acquire approximately £2.5 billion of gross customer assets, comprising £1.4 billion of unsecured personal loans and £1.1 billion of credit cards balances, together with approximately £2.6 billion of customer deposits.

As part of the transaction NatWest Group also expects to add around one million customer accounts.

Paul Thwaite, NatWest Group CEO, commented:
“Following today’s announcement, we look forward to welcoming new customers to NatWest Group, where they will benefit from our expertise and award-winning digital banking offering. This transaction is a great opportunity to accelerate the growth of our Retail Banking business at attractive returns, in line with our strategic priorities. As well as a complementary customer base, the transaction is expected to add scale to our credit card and unsecured personal lending business within existing risk appetite. NatWest Group has a strong track record of successful integration, and we are focussed on ensuring a smooth transition for customers.”

Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s CEO, commented:
“I am pleased to be announcing this news today. NatWest’s values and customer focus are a close fit with ours and as one of the UK’s leading banks, NatWest’s scale and financial services expertise will ensure our existing financial services customers continue to be well looked after. There will be no immediate change for our bank customers as a result of this announcement. Today’s news means we will focus all our time and resources going forward on growing our core retail business, delivering great quality and value, week in week out.”

This transaction is expected to have a 20 basis point impact on NatWest Group's CET1 ratio upon completion and be EPS and RoTE accretive upon completion.