RBS signs up to Facebook's business social network

Facebook has signed Royal Bank of Scotland up to its business social network Facebook at Work.

The FTSE 100 bank said on Monday it will be rolled out to 30,000 employees by end of March and all its 100,000 employees will be signed up by the end of next year.

The addition of RBS will be the platform’s largest client to date

The business version of the major social network was launched in January as a pilot, and has a similar look and feel to the standard Facebook platform.

Staff can post photos, create groups and events, update their work profiles, and send private messages to colleagues, but it is completely separate from their personal Facebook accounts.

That means information shared between employees is only accessible to other colleagues within a company and will be safe, secure and confidential.

RBS began a pilot of the platform with a small handful of employees in July, and claimed “people were able to work much more efficiently together, answer customer questions faster, update other colleagues on their work in a much more engaging way and source a far wider range of ideas for on-going work projects”.

The bank’s chief administrative officer Simon McNamara said the tool has been very useful.

“I’m excited about how bringing people together from all across the bank through Facebook At Work can help our employees do their job better – whether it’s being able to find answers to customer queries much faster or helping us come up with bright new ideas.”

Around 300 other businesses are already using the platform according to TechCrunch, including Heineken and Century 21.