Exclusive:From Brexit and Covid to a brighter tomorrow - NatWest chief talks future of Scottish business

Robert Begbie is a man on a mission and that mission is crystal clear. NatWest’s head of commercial and institutional aims to nurture and scale as many home-grown businesses as he can, while providing those fledgling ventures with the necessary financial firepower to make it on the world stage.

Royal Bank of Scotland owner NatWest has just welcomed more than 2,000 entrepreneurs to its UK-wide network of accelerator hubs - an initiative that has already helped thousands of people to ramp up their businesses.

Begbie, who has been with the banking giant for more than four decades having kicked off his career working on the frontline in a local branch, is discussing his role in the accelerator programme looking out onto a bustling Edinburgh hub that is housed within the grandeur of RBS’s historic headquarters on St Andrew Square. Overseeing a commercial and institutional franchise that supports customers ranging from entrepreneurs and start-ups through to multi-nationals and financial institutions, he is all too aware of the obstacles facing businesses in 2024 but insists the bank and the individuals that it supports can more than rise to the challenge.

Robert Begbie - CEO, NatWest commercial and institutional'

“Businesses have had a lot of challenges to face over the last six or seven years,” Begbie concedes. “But they can find a way to evolve and adapt to whatever is happening, whether that’s been Brexit, the pandemic, high interest rates or high inflation.

“We want home-grown businesses that can grow internationally. And part of what we are thinking about is how we can help to create that ecosystem - what we can provide from a banking perspective that they will need to trade internationally. There are often many different trade bodies and agencies involved and with many customers it’s a case of ‘where do I start?’ How do I even get to the point where I can take my goods and services internationally?”

The bank operates about a dozen physical hubs and one digital accelerator hub spread across the UK, including in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Expert coaching, access to a “wide network of like-minded peers” and a series of events are provided by the programme, which is free for participating businesses, and entrepreneurs do not need to give up any equity to take part.

“This is the largest single cohort of entrepreneurs and businesses coming in that we’ve ever seen,” says Begbie, who during his career has built capital markets businesses across fixed income, derivatives, asset management and cash markets and led teams in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US. “We believe that the programme is an incredibly important part of creating a platform of growth for our customers. Our data shows that if you can go through something like our accelerator hub then you are 70 per cent more likely to get the investment that you need and 35 per cent more likely to grow.

“But that accelerator is almost stage one. What we are thinking about is how we can then take these businesses, and companies in general, and create that ability to become genuinely high growth. We all need to think about how to develop more of that in the UK.”

Most fledgling businesses and even many long established ones will tell you that accessing finance remains a particular headache. A report earlier this year suggested that almost nine in ten entrepreneurs north of the Border have experienced barriers to accessing finance, with many having to borrow from family and friends. Meanwhile, KPMG’s latest Venture Pulse report, released earlier this month, pointed to muted levels of venture capital investment in the first half of 2024.

Begbie makes it clear that businesses utilitising the accelerator programme do not necessarily have to obtain their funding from the bank, but says NatWest is evolving its funding system to meet the demands of the new economy.

“There is access to other forms of private capital,” he says. “But that can be quite patchy. Depending on how much you need and what part of the country you are in, and what industry you are in, accessing private equity and private capital can be challenging.

“The economy continues to evolve and change. The kind of old economy that we grew up with is very different to how the new economy looks today. There’s a lot more around intellectual property and around technology, including AI. We have to evolve our proposition to meet the requirements of these high growth companies.”

Despite advances in financial technology and artificial intelligence, and the general migration to online services, Begbie is adamant that the human touch has a key role to play. He highlights the bank’s regional network, which provides 1,100 relationship managers offering geographical and sectoral expertise.

“We want them to be spending as much time as they possibly can with their customers,” he stresses. “What we don’t want them doing is spending a whole load of time on administration tasks. That’s where we see something like AI being able to provide solutions to free up more time for our customer-facing relationship managers. You have to develop a relationship and you can’t do that through email or Zoom or whatever.”

Begbie’s conversations with businesses up and down the land have highlighted a common set of challenges, including accessing and developing workplace skills and talent and creating a stable economic backdrop.

“I get the same sort of feedback from businesses in Scotland as I do when I go around the UK,” he says. “It’s all about economic growth that stimulates demand. What our customers want to see is some stability of the environment they operate in after five years or so of a pretty unstable backdrop.”

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