The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) GC Michael Shaw argues that banks always encounter more legal work than other industries and, based on the year RBS had, it is hard to disagree. Litigation and investigations in particular have been at the forefront for in-house banking teams since the financial crisis and that narrative remained consistent for RBS in 2017. Shaw describes the growing influx of work as ‘an extraordinary rise, almost exponential’. Among the big cases the bank had to defend was the shareholder group action, which settled in June 2017. A group of 9,000 shareholders accepted a last-minute 82p-pershare out-of-court deal from RBS after they claimed they were misled about the bank’s financial health during the 2008 financial crisis. Will Luker, GC for litigation and investigations, and one of Shaw’s six deputy GCs, oversaw the dispute. Shaw reveals that he is a supporter of the chief operations officer movement and notes the success that RBS has enjoyed since permanently appointing a director of legal operations. Previously RBS’s GC for corporate and structural activities doubled up as the director of legal ops, but Shaw removed the extra burden of that role after he was trying to do the additional work ‘off the side of his desk’. Since then the company has employed Suzanne Rodway full time. Shaw says: ‘We’re very happy with having a dedicated individual in the role. It’s taken some burden away from me and it’s great to have some fresh impetus in some of our projects like e-discovery. To have a representative from legal around a number of formal and informal forums around the bank, taking advantage of different people’s expertise, has been good.’ As for use of tech, Shaw says that RBS is typical of its sector in that it has its own in-house product in addition to one sponsored by a third party. RBS’s proprietary product is called Bankline, which Shaw describes as a ‘commercial banking digital channel that we offer to our corporates small and big’. The platform has about 15 million customers, considerably larger than any other bank. The third-party platform is Esme Loans, a new digital lending platform aimed at small businesses launched in conjunction with fintech company Ezbob. It allows clients to obtain unsecured loans of £150,000 for up to five years, regardless of whether they bank with NatWest or not. In 2016 RBS rebranded its investment bank division as Natwest Markets and Shaw reveals that the headcount of that arm has therefore fluctuated heavily. ‘We have slimmed down the team enormously in recent years. But now the strategy is clear, the changes have come to a halt. We want to make sure that final state is as successful as possible.’