Royal Bank of Scotland preparing to replace Waitrose as ECB sponsors

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England. (Photo by Sarah Ansell/Getty Images)

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is currently in talks with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) about a sponsorship tie-up, Sky News has learnt. The talks are believed to in its ‘advanced stage’ at the moment. Sources close to the bank said an agreement was close to being finalised and likely to be announced in the next few weeks.

It is estimated to be worth around £4m annually to the ECB, and is likely to run for a period of several years. Waitrose became involved with the England team in 2014, and its deal is due to expire next year.

The deal will be announced as the state-backed lender prepares to phase out the RBS name as a consumer brand. Hundreds of branches in Scotland are being rebranded as Royal Bank of Scotland, while the NatWest name is already the group’s dominant identity in England and Wales.

NatWest is no stranger to an association with English cricket, having previously sponsored the County Championship for many years, and more recently the T20 Blast Season in the shorter form of the sport.

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People close to RBS say its new association with the England team will be used as a vehicle to promote the NatWest brand more actively across the country, amid growing competition from challenger banks such as Virgin Money and Metro Bank.

RBS is among four major lenders – along with Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group – which dominate the UK current account market. The Competition and Markets Authority has proposed a series of remedies designed to improve consumers’ range of choice, although many analysts and industry executives have been left unimpressed by the planned reforms.

Under its former chief executive, Fred Goodwin, RBS sought to cement its global empire-building by splurging tens of millions of pounds on sponsorship deals in Formula One motor racing. That association was scrapped after its bailout, largely as a consequence of the bank’s international retrenchment.

It has retained its association with the Six Nations rugby union championship although it recently announced that it would not renew the link beyond next year’s tournament. Explaining that decision, David Wheldon, RBS’s chief marketing officer, said: “As a bank we are now looking at realigning our sponsorship strategy to our customer facing brands, so we feel the time is right to look for alternative sponsorship assets that better fit with our brand strategy.”

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