Williams & Glyn chief to depart early

WILLIAMS & Glyn, the challenger bank being spun off by Royal Bank of Scotland next year, is to lose its chief executive after just 18 months, the parent firm announced yesterday.

Williams & Glyn is a challenger bank due to spin off from RBS. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

RBS said John Maltby will step down once the regulatory process has been gone through, and resume his role as an adviser to Williams & Glyn’s external ­investors’ consortium. He will be replaced by Jim Brown, who is currently chief executive of RBS’s Ulster Bank subsidiary.

Ross McEwan, RBS group chief executive, said: “I would like to express our thanks to John Maltby for his very significant contribution to Williams & Glyn over the past 18 months.

“Much has already been done in building a standalone business and we are grateful for the important role John has played in getting the bank to this point.”

Lord Mervyn Davies, representing the investor consortium, thanked Maltby for his “commitment and focus” in building up the new bank for an independent existence.

RBS has said it wants to float the challenger bank – which has about 300 branches, which RBS was ordered to divest by the ­European Union in return for the parent’s taxpayer bailout – in the second half of 2016.