After 300 years university makes a switch to rival bank

Published on Wednesday 29 September 2010 13:13

FOR 300 years two of Edinburgh's oldest institutions have been bound together in a harmonious working partnership.

Bank of Scotland provided Edinburgh University with all its banking needs, through boom and bust, wars and domestic crises. But the need to cut costs and find efficiencies has forced the university to put its banking services out to tender.

And as a result it has severed its ties with Bank of Scotland and switched its allegiance to the city's other big bank: Royal Bank of Scotland.

Alan Digance, the university's assistant director of finance, said: "We have had to look at our cost base in the same way that any large organisation would do in times of recession.

"In the past we had been involved with RBS when it provided scholarships and funding for the university through its charitable work," he said.

"But most recently we were involved in a tender situation for a new banking partner, and RBS came out on top. That tender process proved to us that RBS was our preferred option, despite the fact that we'd been banking with a competitor for around 300 years."

Eddie Rintoul, in charge of corporate and institutional banking, said: "We are delighted to have been successful in securing this banking relationship."

Bank of Scotland declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for the university said that it regularly puts services such as banking out to corporate tender. "Last year we invited our current bankers and their competitors to apply to provide our banking services. RBS had the most attractive offer in terms of service and price," she said.