Maturity

You’ve got six months from your maturity date to decide what to do. The expiry date is the last day you can choose to buy shares at the option price. After this you’ll still be able to have your savings returned to you as cash. This won’t happen automatically – you’ll need to log in to your EquatePlus account.

Your ShareSave option is your opportunity to buy a set number of NatWest shares when the plan ends. The price you’ll pay is the option price.

If the NatWest share price is higher than the option price, you can choose to buy the shares (known as ‘exercising your option’), and you’ll usually make a profit.

If the share price is lower than the option price you can choose not to exercise your option and instead take your savings back as cash.

You need to make all the monthly payments before your ShareSave is finished. This means 36 payments for a 3-year plan and 60 for a 5-year plan.

So if you’ve taken a payment holiday, this will delay your maturity date. But as long as you keep making the monthly payments, you’ll still be able to buy shares at the option price at the end of your savings period.

Buying shares:

You don’t usually need permission or pre-approval to buy shares at the end of ShareSave, provided you don’t sell them straight away. If you’re an insider, you can’t do this in the 30 days before we announce annual or half-year results to the market.

Selling shares:

Any share sales are subject to the Personal Account Dealing requirements.

If you’re an insider or work in a defined business area, you’ll need to get prior authorisation if you want to sell shares during an Open Window, and you’ll need to use the STAR compliance system.

Find out more about the Personal Account Dealing Requirements, Open Windows and the STAR compliance system on the Control Room hub on the intranet.

Transferring shares:

You don’t usually need permission or pre-approval to transfer your shares to an ISA or personal pension at the end of ShareSave, provided you don’t sell them straight away.

For any subsequent share sales, see “Selling shares” response above.

Gifting shares to spouse / civil partner:

Any gifting of shares to your spouse or civil partner are subject to the Personal Account Dealing requirements.

If you’re an insider or work in a defined business area, you’ll need to get prior authorisation if you want to gift shares to your spouse or civil partner and you’ll need to use the STAR compliance system.

Find out more about the Personal Account Dealing requirements relating to the gifting of shares in Appendix C of the PAD Policy.
 

If you decide to buy shares and you don’t sell them all, your shares will be held in an EquatePlus online account called the Share Plan Account.

It depends on what choice you’ve made.

• If you choose to buy shares and keep them, they’ll usually be in your EquatePlus account within two working days.
• If you choose to buy shares and sell all of them straight away, your money will be sent to you two days after you sell. Remember it can take up to 5 days for the money to reach your bank account (longer for international transactions) and during the festive season this can take longer than usual.
• If you choose to take your savings back as cash, the money will usually be in your bank account in 2-5 working days.

We’re giving you the tax information below to help you make your own decisions. It’s not advice. It’s based on our current understanding of tax rules, but these might change. Remember that tax depends on your individual situation – if you’re not sure you should seek professional advice.

Income tax and National Insurance

We take your chosen amount from your pay after tax has been paid, so you won’t need to pay any more income tax or National Insurance on your savings.

If you choose to buy NatWest shares at the end of the plan, and you keep them, you’ll be entitled to any dividends we pay to our shareholders. Depending on your situation you might need to pay income tax on these dividends

Capital gains tax

If you buy NatWest shares at the end of the plan and sell them at a profit, you might need to pay capital gains tax.

Under the current rules you’re allowed to make £3,000 of gains each tax year before you have to pay any tax.

Remember you’ll only need to pay tax if you make a profit in excess of the limit. You can find out more about capital gains tax, your reporting requirements and how to calculate it in our capital gains tax guide available from the Knowledge Centre.

There are a number of ways to reduce any capital gains tax liability, and in most cases you’ll be able to avoid paying it entirely. You’ll find more information in our helpful blog post

If you decide to buy shares and you don’t want to sell them straight away, your shares will be held in an online account with EquatePlus called the Share Plan Account (SPA). The shares are held electronically instead of you holding a share certificate.

You can see your shares, buy, or sell by logging in. It’s free to hold shares in the account. When you buy or sell, you’ll pay a dealing charge of 0.235% (minimum of £17).

As a shareholder you’ll receive any dividends directly into your EquatePlus account, and can vote at our Annual General Meeting. You can also choose to have your dividends automatically reinvested in more shares if you wish.

Full details of how to use the account can be found on EquatePlus.

Yes, you can. But please note that you cannot transfer to a NatWest or Royal Bank Invest ISA.

Usually, to move shares into an ISA you need to sell them and buy them back within the ISA. But with ShareSave you can avoid this if you do it within 90 days of buying the shares.

Once they’re within the ISA, your shares will be free from capital gains tax and any dividends will be free from income tax.

To do this, firstly contact your ISA provider to let them know what you want to do. They’ll tell you which documents you’ll need to send them and when. Note that different ISA providers will have their own requirements however the documents they request will typically include:

• Your option certificate – you can find this in your documents library on EquatePlus
• A CREST transfer form
• Letter of appropriation – this is a letter from Computershare that confirms that the shares are from a ShareSave plan and the date you bought them.

Before initiating the transfer request on EquatePlus you’ll need to select Choice 1 – Exercise (Buy and KEEP shares) on your maturity election task in order to buy shares with your savings. The date you complete this action will start the 90 days deadline to transfer your ShareSave shares into an ISA. The shares will typically be available in your Share Plan Account within 1-2 days.

Once your shares are available in your Share Plan Account, you can then start the transfer process on EquatePlus. Log into your EquatePlus account and click on the Share Plan Account tile on the Overview screen, click on the green "Transact" button and then select "Transfer". You’ll also need to enter your ISA account details. At the stage when you’re entering the number of shares you wish to transfer, click on “See more” to ensure you select the correct shares (i.e. your recently matured ShareSave shares) from your Share Plan Account that are to be transferred to your ISA provider. Failure to complete this stage correctly could result in a delay in the transfer process - including if you select non-ShareSave shares to transfer at the same time as ShareSave shares. Only select ShareSave shares to transfer or the transfer will fail and need to be resubmitted, which could result in the deadline for transfer being missed. Note that the transfer transaction is not currently available via the EquateMobile App.

Once this is completed, an order confirmation will be generated that includes all the necessary details and can serve as a letter of appropriation. It can be downloaded from your Library in EquatePlus or EquateMobile. You should then share this with your ISA provider. If your ISA provider requires a letter of appropriation before the transfer is completed or requires different or additional documentation, you can contact Computershare either via their contact centre on +44 (0)370 702 0109 or via the HelpChat function.

You should note that while some transfers may complete in 5 to 10 business days it can take up to 20 business days depending on the receiving provider.

Generally, the value of the shares you transfer into your ISA will count towards your £20,000 annual ISA limit.

Yes. You can move shares from ShareSave into a personal pension within 90 days of receiving the shares. However, in practice this is not facilitated by most share plan administrators and personal pension providers. In line with similar workplace pension schemes, it’s not possible to transfer your shares from a ShareSave plan to your NatWest workplace pension.

Yes. You can gift shares to your spouse or civil partner.

This gift is free from capital gains tax, so it can be an effective way to make use of two capital gains tax allowances (i.e., £3,000 each and £6,000 in total).

If you are looking to gift your shares from an upcoming ShareSave maturity you would need to select Choice 1- Exercise (Buy and KEEP shares) on your ShareSave maturity election task for your shares to be transferred to your Share Plan Account on EquatePlus. From there you can click on the Transact button then Transfer option to instruct the transfer of your shares electronically to a third-party brokerage accounts held in your own name. From there it would be possible to make a further onward transfer/gift to your spouse or civil partner. The exact process would depend on your chosen broker so you should always consult with them before initiating the transfer on EquatePlus.

EquatePlus is only able to hold shares originating from an employee share scheme and is subject to certain limitations such as only facilitating transfers to third-party broker accounts that you hold in your own name.