NatWest owner says will reimburse all people hit by IT glitch Stephen Hester, the chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which owns Natwest, also promised free credit checks for people who fear that their lending status may have been affected because of their inability to pay bills in the crisis last month. However the taxpayer-owned bank stopped short of offering people compensation for the disruption, which left 17 million NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank customers unable to move money, pay bills or see an accurate statement of their accounts. Millions more were hit by the knock-on effects. Those who have lost money directly because of the problems can expect to recoup costs such as overdraft fees and interest, late payment fees and interest on mortgages, loans and credit cards and missing interest on savings. For those who have had to dip into an RBS Group Isa, the bank can manually reset its tax-free allowance to make sure customers are not disadvantaged. We are now beginning the job of putting things right for customers who were unfairly impacted by this problem. We don't expect credit - this is a necessary step," said Mr Hester. If someone has been wrongly hit by charges from another major bank or building society, the other provider should refund the customer as an agreement is in place to treat people who have been affected sympathetically. But RBS Group said it will reimburse any losses as a direct result of the crisis, if they are not refunded by another party, which includes those for non-customers as well as its own. People have been urged to keep evidence of extra charges such as emergency travel tickets so they can prove how they were out of pocket.