"Today marks a new era, as we provide an update to our plans and a new purpose for the Bank that will help us become a more sustainable business"
Names of individual NatWest and RBS branches will remain the same and the name change is not expected to result in any job cuts across the group.
Around 80% of the Group's customers currently use NatWest products or services.
The Bank's full-year results show an operating profit before tax of £4.2bn and attributable profits of £3.1bn, almost double the £1.6bn recorded in 2018.
RBS says it exceeded all of its 2019 financial targets in a "challenging market". However, it expects ongoing market uncertainty and regulatory changes to "adversely impact income" in its personal business by around £200 million in 2020.
Additionally, it expects to incur £0.8-1.0 billion of strategic costs during 2020 resulting from a refocussing of NatWest Markets and the continued resizing of the Group’s cost base.
Alison Rose, chief executive of RBS, said: "Today marks a new era, as we provide an update to our plans and a new purpose for the Bank that will help us become a more sustainable business, delivering better outcomes for our customers and our shareholders.
"We, like our customers, are living in a period of unprecedented disruption - whether it is the struggle to get on the housing ladder or starting a business, the rapid growth of disruptive technology, an ageing population, the emergence of the gig economy or the existential impact of climate change. The way people live is changing, and their expectations of companies are changing too. I firmly believe in response, we have to adopt a new approach that moves away from a view that is defined by products and transactions, and uses the strength of the relationships we have with all of our stakeholders as the real test of our progress.
"This disruption is happening against the backdrop of a highly uncertain economic environment. UK economic growth remains subdued, compared to its historic trend, and interest rates are likely to be lower for longer. This has an impact on our ability to generate net interest income. Business confidence continues to be affected by the UK’s departure from the EU as our customers await certainty over the future terms of trade. Consumer confidence, on the other hand, continues to be supported by a relatively strong UK employment market and we are seeing good volumes in our mortgage business as a result. We still see opportunities to grow in our key target markets despite some of these challenging trends."
