Businesses set for accelerated development

The mid-market

Begbie says the bank’s financial performance allows it to develop and push its growth agenda with customers. He explains that customer growth means economic growth which means “everybody will be happy”.

He refers to the bank’s five point Growing Together plan announced a few weeks ago. It includes having social housing at the “very heart” of its agenda and helping deliver more affordable houses. “We’ve seen pretty good growth, irrespective of the fact that I think everyone would recognise that the process of getting through planning is way too slow in terms of the level of ambition,” he says.

Another priority for RBS is providing support to mid-market companies - that fall between small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large corporates - building on the work of its Mid-Market Growth Council.

“We felt they form a sector of the economy which struggles a little bit of the time to have a voice. You'll see a lot about small businesses and SMEs. They get a lot of attention, and understandably so as they're incredibly important. You hear about large companies operating either domestically or internationally,” explains Begbie.

“The mid market makes up a really significant part of the UK economy and employment. We thought by bringing together representatives of not only government and industry bodies, but companies themselves, we can elevate some of the ideas to influence policy and drive more growth.

“I saw three companies in Glasgow yesterday - mid-market and family-owned - and you get a sense of how important they are to local communities, economies and employment.”

A focus will be on supporting mid-market firms to do business internationally, as part of the UK’s drive to become more of an export-led economy, working with the likes of UK Export Finance.

“We announced the Trade Accelerator Pilot with the British Chamber of Commerce and the Department of Business and Trade,” says Begbie. “It’s specific and targeted. We would look to take 30 to 40 mid market companies in health and life sciences who are at the stage where they can consider exporting.

“We have Singapore as a target market. We have contacts in the local economy and government there. We’ll see how that works and if it’s really successful we’ll look at how we can dial it up; how we can take it to bigger economies like India where the scale is completely different.”

Begbie adds that as the biggest business bank in the UK, with the most relationship managers on the ground, most of whom are sector experts, it has a critical role to play in driving economic growth.

Innovation

Turning to the “innovation economy space”, Begbie points to the bank’s appointment last year of Jenny Edwards from JP Morgan to lead and implement its strategy to support the high-growth sector.

“It’s really about joining the dots, because for founders, especially when they get into the high-growth phase, they don't have the ecosystem around them that a bigger company will have,” explains Begbie.

Focus on entrepreneurs

To “turbocharge” its support, RBS has announced a substantial increase in its Accelerator Programme to help 5,000 entrepreneurs, ahead of the opening of its new flagship Edinburgh Hub building on Princes Street this year. The 2026 ambition represents a 10-fold increase over last year. It is more than all the businesses supported in the previous 10 years that the Royal Bank Accelerator Programme has been delivered.

The Accelerator provides entrepreneurs with business coaching, support networks and access to expertise at no cost.

Since launching its Accelerator App last March, the bank has seen over 1,500 downloads in Scotland. RBS currently supports 1,000 businesses through its physical Accelerator Hubs in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Accelerator alumni have included Edinburgh-based pizza oven maker Ooni and Glasgow-based healthcare staffing platform provider Staffscanner. Taken together RBS says Scottish Accelerator community businesses have created over 900 jobs.

Begbie explains that for start-ups which have been through one of its Accelerators in the UK, there is a 70 per cent chance of them still being in existence in three years time. This is higher than the prospects for firms which haven’t been in the programme.

He adds: “There is value in that business creation and the ability for them to grow and employ people. We recognised there was an opportunity to scale that in a number of different ways.”

There is also a plan to set-up Accelerator Hubs in 10 UK universities over three years. So far this is happening in Manchester, Brighton, York and Oxford with more in the pipeline, including Scotland.

“The whole idea is a little bit like the US model. How can you create those unicorn-type ideas at universities?”, says Begbie.

RBS has also announced a £1 million investment in the Scottish EDGE Awards, the country’s largest business funding competition. This will help to fund three awards – a top Young EDGE and Regional EDGE award in their respective current rounds, and an increased Scale EDGE award of £200,000 in the next round, the largest single prize offered by the competition in its history.