RBS cancels Wimbledon hospitality

Royal Bank of Scotland has cancelled its corporate hospitality at Wimbledon in the wake of the IT meltdown which left thousands of customers without access to cash.

The bank, which says it is finally getting on top of the crisis, said it would be "inappropriate" to continue providing the hospitality.

The beleaguered bank has already hosted clients for the first two days of the championships and had planned to do so for the rest of the fortnight.

The move came as Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King said that bank bosses should be subject to a "detailed investigation" over the affair.

RBS successfully updated all but 1% of NatWest and RBS account balances overnight.

RBS Group has had less success sorting out the delays experienced by Ulster Bank customers, but it hopes to restore a full service for the start of next week.

The bank said in a statement: "Technical issues have caused considerable disruption to many of our retail and business customers, as well as customers of other banks. We have made significant progress in resolving the issues and are working around the clock to put things right for our customers.

"Under the circumstances, we felt it would be inappropriate to provide client hospitality at Wimbledon. Our people are focused on resuming normal service for our customers as soon as possible."

The bank declined to divulge how much money it had planned to spend on hospitality.

Sir Mervyn told MPs there would need to be a "detailed investigation" into what went wrong and why it has taken so long to sort the issues out.