NatWest UK, and it has a large network of over 960 branches and 3,400 cash machines across Great Britain and offers 24-hour "Actionline" telephone and online banking services. Today, it has more than 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts. In Ireland, it operates through its Ulster Bank subsidiary. In 2017, NatWest was awarded Best Banking App in the British Bank Awards. The bank's origins date back to 1658 with the foundation of Smith's Bank of Nottingham. The creation of the modern bank was announced in 1968, and National Westminster Bank Limited commenced trading on 1 January 1970, after
British Linen Bank branch network was given as joint third to the Royal Bank and the Commercial Bank of Scotland. British Linen, now formally a bank, had distanced itself from the amalgamations in Scottish banking and by 1914 it had "declined from a position somewhere in the middle of the scale to the bottom". By the end of the First World War British Linen realised it needed an association with a larger bank with good overseas connections and agreement was reached for Barclays to buy the bank in 1919. As with other Scottish banks, geographic sensitivities led to British Linen being referred to