Royal Bank revives Child & Co and Drummonds brands

Child & Co and Drummonds became part of the RBS group with the acquisition of NatWest last year, as did Coutts, the Queen’s bankers.

Now the Royal hopes to relaunch the famous brands under the overall supervision of Coutts, targeting high-net individual customers.

Royal Bank is likely to create a separate private banking operation to compliment Coutts, and Adam and Company, the Edinburgh-based private bank based in Charlotte Square which it also owns.

Child began trading as part of a goldsmith’s shop in the 1580s and has "a few thousand" customers at the moment, according to Andrew Fisher, Coutts’ chief executive. It has traded at its Fleet Street site since 1673. Drummonds was established in London in the early 1700s by a Scottish goldsmith.

As a small private bank, Child/Drummonds will effectively compete with Coutts, and will be looking for around 50,000 customers, each with between 100,000-500,000 of assets or more.