RBS Runs Clinics to Avoid Brexit Crunch For Small Businesses

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is running Brexit clinics in the hope of soothing concerns that small and mid-sized businesses aren’t ready for what awaits them.

RBS’s NatWest bank is holding meetings across the country, coaching businesses on how to face disruption to trade, workers or data flows once the U.K. leaves the European Union, it said in a press release on Thursday. The bank is also making 8.2 billion pounds ($10.5 billion) in loans available to support small businesses during Brexit, up from the 6 billion pounds it previously announced.

“SMEs are less proactive at this stage and don’t want to assume any extra costs for Brexit,” said Paul Thwaite, interim head of commercial banking. NatWest said it is contacting several thousand customers who it believes would be most affected by the current instability.

A host of new regulations could suddenly apply after Brexit, risking disruption for Britain’s 5.6 million small and mid-sized firms. The Federation of Small Businesses has warned that only one in five small enterprises have prepared for a no-deal Brexit, in which the U.K. leaves the bloc without an agreement for the movement of people and goods.

RBS is running its clinics in partnership with the U.K. government’s department for business, energy and industrial strategy and expects to hold dozens of meetings ahead of Oct. 31, the scheduled date for the U.K. to depart.

SMEs employ 16.3 million people and generated $2.6 trillion in revenue in 2018, according to the FSB. They face higher costs, trade delays, and a raft of new documentation requirements unless a transition deal is signed with the EU.

To contact the reporter on this story: Stefania Spezzati in London at sspezzati@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Marion Dakers, Keith Campbell

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