NatWest CEO to face UK lawmakers on savings rates after U-turn

LONDON (Reuters) -NatWest CEO Alison Rose will face a grilling by British lawmakers next Tuesday over whether lenders are passing on enough of central bank interest rate rises to consumers, after initially saying she was too busy to attend.

"Following further discussions with the Treasury Committee on the vital issues at hand, Alison Rose will be attending next week's Committee hearing," a spokesperson for NatWest said.

Harriett Baldwin, chair of the committee, had said on Wednesday that she was keen for all major banks' top bosses to appear and for there not to be an all-male panel.

"Public scrutiny of our largest financial institutions is vital," Baldwin said in a statement on Thursday.

Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn, HSBC UK boss Ian Stuart and Barclays UK boss Matt Hammerstein are also set to attend the hearing held by the powerful Treasury Select Committee.

The Bank of England raised its benchmark rate again on Thursday to 4% - the highest since 2008.

However, customers of the four big high street banks can expect to earn between 0.5% and 0.65% on their basic savings, the committee said in a statement.

NatWest had initially said its retail bank boss David Lindberg was an appropriate boss to represent the bank at the hearing. Rose had blamed diary constraints ahead of the state-backed lender's full-year results on Feb. 17.

(Reporting by Iain Withers; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Deepa Babington)