Atrocious bank for business customers.

Recently we submitted a mandate to have two directors added to our account, but in the process they removed the one director who had access. Since then we were told that the mandate would take 7-10 business days and then we would get online banking, however this week when chasing it we were told we needed to apply for that separately, which I then did. I then called back in the afternoon to be told that it used to be automatic but they removed it - Why one earth didn't the first person we spoke to tell us?

The individual we spoke to yesterday told us that one of us could go into branch with a signature from the other to transfer funds to an account with another bank that we can actually access. I stressed that this was to PAY WAGES, to which the operator very calmly and confidently told me it would be fine.

However, on going into branch this morning and speaking with the lady there I was told we could not do this, and that the other director would need to be there. She said she may have been able to do it the person I spoke to the day before had left a note on the system, but they hadn't. I completed the form in branch and now the other director will have to go in tomorrow to sign, which is a massive pain to sort.

I am absolutely FURIOUS that the telephone business banking team would tell me to go into branch and be so flippant about it when we have wages to pay. We are in the process of setting up a new bank account and will be closing down our account with NatWest, because all of this time lost, and the risk of not being able to access funds to pay the ages of nine employees, in intollerable.

We set up our account with natWest a few years ago having met one of their team and being told about Free Agent as a freebie, but for the amount of time we have lost dealing with the issues we might as well have paid for Xero.