Bankline | Royal Bank Business banking

Your accounts 
You can register and access up to 999 of your company’s sterling or currency accounts held with Royal Bank of Scotland, including accounts held by subsidiaries. Accounts can be added or removed whenever you like.

Payment limits
Your business can set a payment limit for single payments made from your accounts, and the level at which authorisation is required to process it. You can also set individual payment limits for each of your users.

View balances
Bankline allows you to view balances in several different ways.

These include:

• Last night's ledger: the ledger balance, including all uncleared items, as at the close of the previous business day.
• Last night's cleared: the ledger balance excluding all uncleared cheques credited to the account, as at the close of the previous business day.
• Today's ledger: the ledger balance including all uncleared items, plus debit and credit transactions known to us at the beginning of the business day.
• Today's cleared: the balance for the account, including debits and credits that have been cleared or are due to clear that day. Please note, this balance doesn't reflect items that are reversed and other items passing throughout the day.

Please note: only balance information for accounts held with us are available in real-time in Bankline. This means that items are shown as they are received and processed during the day. However, items are subject to verification and possible reversal or adjustment.

While this provides an indication of the balance which can be paid from your accounts,  items can still be returned unpaid and this balance doesn't guarantee that finality has been achieved on these items. For example, funds may show as cleared for interest and available funds purposes, however, you should allow at least four working days before you use the money from a cheque paid in. In some cases cheques may still come back unpaid after this time.

Domestic payments
Your business can make payments using Faster Payments or CHAPS through Bankline.

• Faster Payments is a service for making immediate payments under £250,000.
• CHAPS is an electronic, same-day settlement network for commercial and inter-bank payments.

International payments
When transferring funds between any of your sterling and currency accounts registered in Bankline, you can choose the currency you wish the transfer to be made in. For international payments or currency inter-account transfers, you can book a foreign exchange rate in advance or let Bankline automatically book a rate for you.

Inter-account transfers (IATs)
Your business can transfer funds between sterling and currency accounts registered on Bankline as often as you like. In most cases the transferred funds are visible and available for use immediately. Interest continues to be calculated on the closing balances of your accounts every day.

If your business holds accounts with Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest, you can transfer funds between these accounts as a Faster Payment (value up to £250,000).

Templates/Bulk Lists
If you make regular payments to the same beneficiary, you can save time by creating a template for future use. It's also easy to create a template for regular IATs.

Payment file import and data export
Payment files can be imported into Bankline from accounting systems such as Sage and Pegasus as a comma separated variable (CSV) file format or BACSTEL- IP format.

You can also export account information from Bankline enabling you to manipulate it into a more convenient format, or use it in other applications. Data can be exported in a range of formats: Bankline (.csv), SWIFT and BAI version 2.

Log on security
When you log on to Bankline, encrypted information protect your details. Logging on requires a combination of unique passwords, PINs and user IDs to access the service. You can even decide how often users must change their passwords for optimum security.

Restricted access
Only designated users for your business can access Bankline. When you start using the service, we'll give your organisation a unique ID code (the ‘Customer ID') and other security information.

Security & payments
To make payments or some inter-account transfers you'll need authorisation via a smartcard and smartcard reader, giving you another layer of security. You will have an appointed Bankline administrator within your business who will be issued with a smartcard, and they can create additional authorised users.

Each authorised user has their own smartcard, which is used in conjunction with a smartcard reader. Without the smartcard, the transaction or change can’t be made.

Keeping your information secure
Bankline security protects the connection between our secure server and your browser. We also monitor and defend against attacks.

Audit logs
Enjoy full control of who uses the service and what they can do. You can limit the functions each user can perform, by defining individual account access. If you need to investigate transactions, your administrator can request the audit log.

Once you start using Bankline, we’ll store your balance and transaction data and so that you can access up to 15 months’ data online.

We’ll store audit information for seven years (subject to terms and conditions).

Your system
We recommend your organisation maintains up-to-date anti-virus and firewall software on all computers, to protect you from new threats as they emerge.

For additional online protection download the free Rapport security software

Phishing for information
Fraudsters use many techniques to obtain customers' passwords and security credentials. We’ll never ask you for a complete set of security details on any web page or via email.

Also, we’ll never ask for your security challenge code from your smartcard and reader to log on or confirm your identity.

What is External Account Reporting?

The external account holding bank will send SWIFT MT940 and MT942 messages to us containing our balance and transaction information for the accounts authorised for reporting.

• SWIFT MT940 messages provide end of day balance and transaction details for a specific account.
• SWIFT MT942 messages provide details of interim transactions for a specific account. 

The account holding bank wills end these messages to us so that you can view any transactions that have been applied to your account since the last MT940 or MT942 issued. It is important that you check with your Relationship Manager at the External Bank that they are able to generate MT942.

Next steps?

Please contact your Relationship Manager to discuss the External Account Reporting Service. There are costs for using the service and these are in addition to your Bankline monthly service fees and payment charges. If you wish to go ahead and set up the service your Relationship Manager will arrange for someone from our Implementation team to contact you directly to take the request forward.