Royal Bank decides to lose the S-word

All is not well at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Executives at Britain's second-largest bank are concerned that its name makes it sound a little too, well, Scottish.

In an effort to play down the image of whisky, tartan and bagpipes, the bank plans to lose the S-word from much of its corporate branding. Instead, the full regal name will be relegated to small print and the initials RBS will sing out from overseas marketing material.

Fred Goodwin, the chief executive, revealed the plan in an interview with the American financial magazine, Bloomberg Money Markets. "People associate Scotland with whisky, tartan, bagpipes, and golf. People pigeonhole us, and that was pretty accurate up until a few years ago," he said.

Already the bank, which has offices in Europe, the US, and Asia, is using the initials in a new advertising and sponsorship campaign in America, where it has a large following through its Citizens subsidiary.

Last month the bank, founded in 1727 and now Scotland's largest company, launched Team RBS with the golfing legend Jack Nicklaus to raise its profile in America and build a US golf programme. The RBS initials were also used during the recent RBS Six Nations rugby championship.

As a group RBS, which is now the fifth-biggest in the world after its £21bn acquisition of NatWest, which was the largest takeover in UK banking history, employs more than 111,000 staff worldwide.

In addition to the provision of a full range of banking services under the Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest brands, the group also includes other organisations such as the Ulster Bank, Coutts Group, Direct Line motor insurance, Citizens Financial Group in the US and the Lombard finance company.

"We have no intention of dropping the Royal Bank of Scotland name completely," a spokeswoman for the bank said yesterday.