Bank group warned over marketing

A woman with a NatWest account complained to advertising watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after receiving two emails in May promoting the CashbackPlus scheme, querying whether the bank had her permission to give her details to a third party and pointing out that it had failed to unsubscribe her from its marketing database.

RBS, which owns NatWest, said the terms and conditions for the woman’s account said the bank might share account holders’ information with other members of the RBS Group or third parties providing services to the organisation, and customers could receive marketing information.

However NatWest confirmed that although the woman had opted out of all marketing communication, this was “captured incorrectly” by the bank.

RBS said it had received a total of four complaints and had identified 341 customers out of 500,000 who had unsubscribed but subsequently received emails.