On 5 August 2016, RBS Group announced it had abandoned plans to spin off Williams & Glyn as a stand-alone business, stating that the new bank could not survive on its own due to Brexit.

[8] In February 2017, HM Treasury and the European Commission reached a provisional agreement in which RBS would be able to retain the Williams & Glyn assets in return for investing £833 million into a fund aimed at increasing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending by challenger banks and for RBS agreeing to allow SME customers of challenger banks to use its branch network for cash and cheque handling.

[9] A final agreement for the retention of the Williams & Glyn assets by RBS Group was approved by the European Commission in September 2017.

[32] In September 2013, the group confirmed it had reached an agreement to sell 314 branches to the Corsair consortium,[6] made up of private equity firms and a number of institutional investors.

[35] Planning applications for the erection of new branch signage bearing the Williams & Glyn brand identity were submitted to local authorities across the north of England in early 2016.

[37] On 16 December 2015, RBS confirmed it had received a number of informal offers for the bank, and would seek to complete a sale by the end of 2017.

[39] On 5 August 2016, RBS published details of the group's half-yearly financial results, revealing a £2.05 billion loss for the first half of 2016.

RBS Group blamed historically low interest rates and the fallout from the UK's 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum with uncertainties caused by the pro-Brexit result.

[40] In August 2016, RBS cancelled its plan to spin off Williams & Glyn as a separate business, stating that the new bank could not survive independently.

[42] In the same month RBS confirmed that it would be unable to sell Williams & Glyn by the end of 2017, potentially giving the European Commission the right to take control of the sales process.

[46] RBS was ordered to sell Williams & Glyn by regulators as part of the bank's obligations for receiving state aid during the government bailout[47] in 2009[48] after the 2008 financial crisis.

[50] In that month the HM Treasury and the European Commission reached a provisional agreement in which RBS Group would be able to retain the Williams & Glyn assets in return for investing £750 million into a fund aimed at increasing SME lending by challenger banks and for RBS agreeing to allow SME customers of challenger banks to use its branch network for cash and cheque handling.

[50] RBS ultimately avoided the sale by deal-making with the government, earning approval to reintegrate Williams & Glyn and the associated branch network into its core bank.

[47] As an alternative to divesting of Williams & Glyn, RBS agreed to create a $1 billion fund to support competing companies, as part of an agreement with the Treasury and the European Commission.

[52] A final agreement, known as the "Alternative Remedies Package", was ultimately reached with the College of European Commissioners in September 2017, allowing RBS Group to retain the Williams & Glyn assets and bringing the sale process to a close.

After creating the fund, RBS considered relaunching Williams & Glyn as a new brand, but risks led to the bank abandoning the idea,[53] closing 162 branches[47] by June of 2018 as a result.

The BBC quoted the Unite union criticizing the move, in part for limiting easy access to disabled and elderly customers.

[67][68] New uniforms which were to have been worn by Williams & Glyn staff were revealed at an event held at SS Great Britain in Bristol.

[citation needed] The leadership team of the part of the Royal Bank of Scotland plc that was to have become Williams & Glyn was composed of: