The structural links between NatWest Group, the UK Government / HM Treasury, and the Bank of England:
- 2008 Bailout & State Ownership – The UK Government injected tens of billions of pounds into NatWest (then RBS), becoming a majority shareholder and effectively nationalising the bank for over a decade.
- Treasury Shareholding Management – HM Treasury (via UK Government Investments) managed the state’s stake, influencing board appointments, executive pay limits, restructuring plans, and eventual share sell-downs.
- Capital & Prudential Supervision – The Bank of England (through the Prudential Regulation Authority) sets NatWest’s capital requirements, stress tests the bank annually, and has authority over its solvency framework.
- Liquidity & Crisis Facilities – During periods of market stress, NatWest has access to Bank of England liquidity facilities (e.g., discount window, term funding schemes), tying its short-term stability directly to central bank mechanisms.
- Resolution & Systemic Status – NatWest is designated a systemically important UK bank, meaning the Bank of England oversees its resolution planning (“living will”) to prevent collapse risk to the wider economy.
Below is our latest substack article on the situation:
Propertycorruption.com : National Westminster Bank – How Big Business became Organised Crime
Feb 15, 2026
Modern institutional power isn’t messy — it’s highly organized, and often more so than traditional organized crime. The world’s financial system doesn’t just enable big wrongdoing — it shields it.
NatWest Group CEO Paul Thwaite
National Westminster Bank was created in 1968 through the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank, forming one of Britain’s major clearing banks. In 2000, it was taken over in a £21 billion hostile bid by Royal Bank of Scotland Group, transforming RBS into a global banking giant. The expansion culminated in the disastrous 2007 ABN AMRO acquisition, just before the financial crisis. In 2008, after suffering enormous losses, RBS was rescued with a £45.5 billion UK government bailout, leaving the state as majority shareholder. In 2020, the group rebranded as NatWest Group, retreating from its failed global empire strategy and repositioning itself as a domestically focused, post-crisis institution.
A striking example is the criminal prosecution of NatWest Group in the UK.
The “Bin Bag” Case — What Happened
- 2011–2016: A Bradford jewellery business, Fowler Oldfield, deposited £365 million, much of it in physical cash — at least £264 million — brought into NatWest branches in black bin liners.
- Branch staff reportedly stored so much physical cash that safes ran out of space.
- Multiple obvious red flags — thousands in musty notes, bin bags, unsupervised deposits — went unacted upon for years.
- June 2021: NatWest pleaded guilty at Leeds Crown Court to failing to comply with anti–money laundering regulations.
- October 2021: It was fined £264.8 million — the largest ever such fine at that time in the UK.
The Outcome — And What It Signals
- No senior executive was criminally charged.
- No one went to prison.
- The fine was simply an expense on the bank’s balance sheet.
- Regulators treated the failure as procedural breakdowns — “risk management weaknesses” — rather than an expression of criminal enterprise.
This isn’t sloppy oversight. It’s structural impunity.
When the worst consequence of harboring hundreds of millions in suspicious cash is a fine your shareholders can absorb, the behavior isn’t deterred — it’s priced in.
The Latest Ongoing Natwest Group Scandal
A number of major institutional investors and stewards would reasonably expect to be aware of any emerging governance or disclosure uncertainty affecting NatWest Group. These include BlackRock and Vanguard Group, whose active and passive funds collectively hold exposure to most UK banks; Legal & General Investment Management, a leading UK institutional investor with a strong public focus on stewardship and governance; and Schroders, an active manager with dedicated coverage of UK financials and bank-specific risk.
In addition, Norges Bank Investment Management, one of the world’s largest and most governance-focused sovereign wealth funds, routinely evaluates banks not only on financial performance but on disclosure quality, accountability, and systemic risk. For investors of this type, the existence of a growing, publicly documented case study — irrespective of conclusions — is relevant information, particularly where market confidence, ratings reliance, and trust in disclosure frameworks are central to long-term capital allocation.
You’d even expect Natwest Group to have informed them – but did they? Here is an update for them:
When Risk Management Becomes Risk Removal: NatWest, Ratings Agencies, and a System Under Strain
If the way a major bank manages extreme portfolio risk is by removing the executive responsible for overseeing it, that is not risk resolution — it is risk displacement.
The exit of Keiran Foad, former Chief Risk Officer of NatWest Group, came one day after the conclusion of our six-month review linked to a serious, unresolved portfolio risk related case study. No public explanation followed. No remediation plan was published. No confirmation was given that the risk had been neutralised.
What changed was the personnel.
What did not change was the exposure.
A Risk That Did Not Close
The situation outlined in the underlying case study remains live:
- The same portfolio-linked risk persists
- The same operational deadlock exists
- There is still no articulated “way forward”
- Downstream harms continue to compound
In any credible governance framework, the removal of a senior risk executive would normally follow demonstrable resolution or a transparent transfer of accountability. Neither has been made visible here.
That absence matters.
Group-Wide Exposure, Not an Isolated Issue
This is not confined to a single asset or customer. NatWest Group’s structure means unresolved risks may cut across multiple regulated entities, including NatWest Bank, Coutts, The Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest Markets, and Ulster Bank.
Where risks sit inside shared portfolios, data systems, legal structures, or third-party management arrangements, containment cannot be assumed. That is how local failures become systemic ones.
The Human Dimension of Risk
What elevates this beyond technical governance is the human risk alleged within the case study.
It raises concerns that include:
- residents potentially being unknowingly monitored or tracked
- unresolved allegations intersecting with asset management and institutional inaction
- extreme scenarios — including references to attempted murder allegations — existing without visible escalation or safeguarding outcomes
Whether or not such allegations are ultimately substantiated, the failure to visibly resolve or neutralise the risk is itself unacceptable under any modern banking standard.
Silence is not a control.
The Rating Agencies Question
This leads directly to the role of credit rating agencies — institutions whose judgments underpin investor confidence, capital costs, and market stability.
NatWest Group entities are assessed by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings, and DBRS Morningstar.
Material, unresolved risks — particularly those involving legal exposure, governance failure, human safety, or data handling — are precisely the type of issues ratings frameworks are designed to interrogate. These agencies have already been notified via their public contact channels. This article therefore functions as a public letter asking a simple question:
When formally notified of potentially material risk, will rating agencies exercise independent judgment — or allow silence to substitute for analysis?
That question is directed to senior leadership at credit rating agencies, including Rob Fauber, Martina Cheung, Paul Taylor, and Jeff DiMaggio.
Rob Fauber – President & CEO at Moody’s
No accusation is made.
Only accountability is requested.
Disclosure, Investors, and Market Integrity
The same logic applies to investors. If such risks are not disclosed through market announcements, risk factors, or ongoing communications, serious questions arise about whether markets are being asked to price incomplete information.
Investor groups with a direct interest include:
- Institutional equity holders such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds
- Fixed-income investors holding NatWest senior or subordinated debt
- ESG-focused asset managers assessing governance and social risk
- Insurers and reinsurers exposed to NatWest-linked assets
- Index and ETF providers embedding NatWest securities into passive products
For these stakeholders, unresolved silence is not neutral.
It is risk by omission.
A Case Study That Will Define the Record
What makes this situation more serious — and more dangerous for markets — is that the central case study now published at PropertyCorruption.com is not closing down. It is expanding. It is being established as a long-term reference point: a core example that will be cited, revisited, and built upon for many years as further allegations, disclosures, and corroborating material emerge. It is already becoming the jumping-off point for wider scrutiny of property-linked banking risk, governance failure, and institutional inaction across the sector. The most shocking aspect is that investors currently have little to no visibility that this case study even exists, let alone that it represents a live, unresolved, and growing risk narrative. A scenario in which a publicly listed banking group carries an expanding, publicly documented risk case — one intended to endure and compound over time — without corresponding market disclosure or rating reassessment should alarm anyone who believes in transparent markets, informed investment, and credible risk governance.
Future Options
At this point, only two outcomes are credible. Given the persistence, scale, and public documentation of this unresolved portfolio risk, we now formally call for one of two actions from NatWest Group: either Katie Murray, as Group Chief Financial Officer, issues a clear, on-the-record statement reassuring investors that the risks outlined in the PropertyCorruption.com case study are immaterial, fully accounted for, and appropriately disclosed — or she steps aside. Silence is no longer a neutral position. In a publicly listed bank, the CFO is the final gatekeeper of market integrity, disclosure discipline, and investor trust. If reassurance cannot be given with confidence and evidence, then continued occupancy of that role becomes untenable.
And that is precisely the problem. NatWest Group now appears unable to do either: it cannot credibly reassure investors without confronting and disclosing a risk it has so far avoided addressing, and it cannot allow continued silence without implicitly accepting that disclosure controls have failed. This leaves Katie Murray — and by extension NatWest Group — locked in an impossible position of their own making. When neither reassurance nor resignation is politically or legally survivable, the issue is no longer communications strategy; it is evidence of a structural governance deadlock where accountability itself has broken down.
Credit Agencies and the Blind Spot of Systemic Bank Corruption
A parallel accountability question now arises for consumer and commercial credit agencies — including Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These institutions sit at the heart of modern financial infrastructure, shaping lending decisions, affordability assessments, risk pricing, and individual financial outcomes. Their models assume that banks are broadly acting in good faith within lawful systems. But what happens when the risk is not individual default — but systemic institutional misconduct?
Awareness Without Adjustment
Systemic corruption in banking is not novel, rare, or speculative. It has been exposed repeatedly through fines, settlements, regulatory actions, and whistleblower cases across jurisdictions. Credit agencies are fully aware of this reality. In multiple cases — including those linked to property-based portfolio risks — agencies have been formally notified of live disputes, unresolved governance failures, and institutional stonewalling. Yet there is no visible evidence that such signals meaningfully alter credit scoring logic, lender reliability weighting, or downstream harm modelling.
Risk Laundering Through Data Neutrality
When credit agencies continue to process bank-supplied data as neutral, authoritative input — despite credible evidence of systemic misconduct — they effectively launder institutional risk into individual consumer outcomes. The result is asymmetric harm: individuals absorb consequences through impaired credit files, denied access to finance, or distorted affordability profiles, while originating institutions remain algorithmically protected. This is not neutrality. It is risk displacement disguised as objectivity.
Complicity by Design, Not Intent
No allegation is made that credit agencies endorse corruption. The issue is structural. When institutions with market-critical power decline to adapt models, flags, or escalation pathways in the face of persistent, well-documented bank misconduct, the outcome is functional complicity. Silence becomes a processing choice. Inaction becomes a risk decision. And consumers are left carrying the weight of failures they did not create and cannot challenge.
The Question That Remains
Credit agencies now face the same question confronting banks and rating agencies alike:
How is systemic corruption accounted for inside your risk frameworks — and if it is not, who bears responsibility for the harm that follows?
If the answer is “it isn’t,” then the problem is no longer one of isolated misconduct. It is evidence of a financial risk ecosystem that protects itself by design.
Take Darryl Gibson, as the senior executive overseeing legal and risk at Experian, who is ultimately accountable in the UK for ensuring credit data accuracy and lawful risk governance when systemic errors are alleged? We await your reply Mr Gibson.
NatWest’s announcement of Keiran Foad’s departure stands out when compared with other senior leadership changes over the last year. While most departures are framed as planned transitions with clear future dates, Foad’s exit is described as already complete. The language used is immediate rather than prospective, with no notice period or handover window referenced. This does not, in itself, explain the reason for the departure, but it does place it in a different category from routine, planned governance changes — based on NatWest’s own wording.
Comparative announcement language:
- Keiran Foad – Group Chief Risk Officer (Jan 2026)
“Keiran Foad has stepped down as Group Chief Risk Officer and has left the bank.”
Assessment: Immediate - Yasmin Jetha – Non-Executive Director (Jan 2026)
“Yasmin Jetha will retire from the Board with effect from 31 March 2026.”
Assessment: Planned - Other Board / Committee Changes (2025–2026)
“Appointment… effective from [future date].”
Assessment: Planned - Chief Customer & Operating Officer Appointment (2025)
“NatWest Group has appointed [name]…”
Assessment: Planned / standard transition
The contrast is not subtle: “has left the bank” denotes a completed and immediate departure, whereas other announcements consistently reference future dates, retirements, or orderly succession planning.
Interim Role, Permanent Liability: A Note to the Chief Risk Function
We can confirm that Sean Pilcher, currently acting as Interim Chief Risk Officer at NatWest, has opened our emails.
What has not occurred, however, is equally important.
To date, there is no indication that Mr Pilcher has requested, obtained, or reviewed a formal handover from his suddenly departed predecessor, Keiran Foad.
This absence is not administrative trivia.
It is a risk event in itself.
The Handover Gap
In any regulated financial institution, the transition between Chief Risk Officers—permanent or interim—carries mandatory expectations:
- continuity of knowledge
- preservation of risk registers
- transfer of open investigations and escalations
- awareness of unresolved legal, safety, and reputational exposures
The failure to request or document a handover is not neutrality.
It is active omission.
Interim Does Not Mean Immune
We therefore place the following on the record.
Even in an interim capacity:
- statutory duties apply,
- criminal law applies,
- and personal liability applies.
Actions (or inactions) that may amount to:
- perverting the course of justice,
- suppressing material risk information,
- or knowingly allowing misconduct to continue
attach to the individual, not the job title’s permanence.
An “interim” label does not dilute accountability.
It merely shortens the window in which it can be demonstrated.
The Awareness Threshold Has Been Crossed
By opening the emails, Mr Pilcher has crossed a clear legal threshold:
- constructive knowledge now exists,
- the issues raised cannot be treated as hypothetical,
- and silence becomes an evidentiary fact, not a neutral stance.
From this point forward, any failure to:
- seek predecessor records,
- examine inherited risk files,
- or clarify unresolved escalations
raises serious questions about intent, not oversight.
The Question That Now Exists
The issue is no longer whether NatWest’s risk function should be aware.
It is this:
Why would an interim Chief Risk Officer choose not to request a handover when credible, documented risk disclosures are already in his inbox?
There are only a limited number of possible answers—and none of them are benign.
Closing Note
This article is not an accusation.
It is a timestamp.
It records:
- who knew,
- when they knew,
- and what was (or was not) done next.
Interim roles end.
Paper trails do not.
Further silence will be treated not as uncertainty, but as choice.
Update 17 Feb 2026
Court PCOL showed a hearing on 10 Feb 2026. Neither defendant or the claimant were notified (see NatWest solicitor email below). Neither party attended. Full reporting when we understand more; Brighton Court and High Court are not opening emails. Did TLT really not know? It is worth remembering TLT is still refusing to name their solicitor who attended the remote hearing on Nov 3rd 2025 and have already been reported to Police in this case for potentially the perverting course of justice in many aspects. . Also, TLT sent many letters to the court just before the mystery hearing—it will be interesting to see what was in those communications. Or is there another explanation for all this? .
From: TLT
Subject: RE: 10 Feb 2026 Hearing [TLT-]
Date: Feb 17 2026, at 3:21 pm
To: info@propertycorruption.com,
Thank you for your email.
We were not notified of a hearing on 10 February 2026. Following receipt of your email this afternoon, we will make inquiries with the Court to ascertain if a hearing took place last week and we will update you on the Court’s response.
Many thanks.
Regards,
TLT LLP
Update 18 Feb 2025
Are TLT/Court pretending hearing was booked on Nov 3rd and don’t mentioned ghost hearing:
From: Mortgage Dispute <Mortgage.Dispute@TLT.com>
Subject: RE: New Draft Article – Perverting the Course of Justice [TLT-TLT.]
Date: Feb 18 2026, at 10:33 am
To: Info@propertycorruption.com <info@propertycorruption.com>
Dear
Please find enclosed a copy of the Court’s Order of 3 November 2025 which confirms the hearing listed on 14 May 2026.
Many thanks.
Regards,
(they attach a doc)
But there was nothing on PCOL showing it was:
TLT LLP
The Reply
From: info@propertycorruption.com
Subject: Re: New Draft Article – Perverting the Course of Justice [TLT-TLT.FID10942167]
Date: Feb 18 2026, at 10:37 am
To: Mortgage Dispute <Mortgage.Dispute@TLT.com>
Hi,
Was this sent via email to you or me? and was it recorded on PCOL at the time? It wasn’t mentioned in the hearing.
Regards,
The Only time is was shown was the same day at the ghost hearing
And could TLT explain the 5 letters to the court just before the ghost hearing? Do I have the right to see them – yes or no? how about all the other comms you sent to the court in this case?
Further emails to TLT
From: info@propertycorruption.com
Subject: Re: New Draft Article – Perverting the Course of Justice [TLT-TLT.FI]
Date: Feb 18 2026, at 11:13 am
To: Mortgage Dispute <Mortgage.Dispute@TLT.com>
Subject: Formal Inquiry: Undisclosed Hearing Listings and Procedural Omissions
We require immediate clarification on the following points:
- The May Hearing: On what specific date did TLT first become aware of the May hearing? Are you claiming this was confirmed by the 3 November 2025 Order, why was it omitted from all subsequent correspondence and PCOL updates until now? and why with all the emails and articles about nothing been booked for months – why wasn’t it mentioned before?
- The February 10th Hearing: Please define the nature and purpose of the hearing listed for 10 February 2026.
- Pre-Hearing Correspondence: Disclose the contents of the five letters sent by TLT/NatWest to the Court immediately preceding the 10 February Hearing. Also provide all the other correspondence with court that is shown on PCOL.
Regards
Update 20 Feb 2026
TLT says they spoke to the Court and said there was no 10 Feb 2026 hearing.
The hearing is still on PCOL and court so far refuses to reply to any emails about it .
This case needs a public inquiry.
Paul Thwaite – Natwest Group CEO at another public inquiry .
Also TLT had no reply to Part One of a review highlighting dozens of issues with their actions which seem indicative of perverting course of justice.
1 March Update:
Moreland estate (freeholder) appears to have joined the corruption saying they are now managing service charges for Oakley Property (who haven’t enforced service charges for over 15 months, issues one stage one enforcement in June 2025 and one in Dec 2025 with obvious forging of past demands that led to Police Reports) by sending random low figures from 2009 onwards from a no reply email address. Email sent today to attempt to clarify situation to Oakley and Moreland.
See history of Oakley Property and Moreland estate involvement here.
Also interesting post online about Moreland:
which includes this text
“Moreland Estate Management and the director, Laurence Freilich, appears to be/have been the named director of around 90 companies listed on Companies House (link is here https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/tLV45fRP5zjYzOFJYvv3MwHMnO0/appointments).
A previous iteration of Moreland Estate Management seems to have been dissolved, apparently following legal action by other leaseholders, but it looks like they’ve just gone ahead and set it right back up again. Can anyone please give me any insight into what’s going on here, particularly if there are any potential conflict of interest arguments I could use in the case of trying to initiate a tribunal against them?”
It raises the question, if this is true – was it because of this case or many cases?