We should wake up to the fact that we're not going to see that RBS bailout money again

 

Jim Armitage
Tuesday 28 January 2014 02:14 GMT
Comments
(GETTY IMAGES)

Your support helps us to tell the story

This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.

The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.

Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.

Just when you thought the disaster at RBS couldn’t get any worse, it did.

The size of these new losses five years after the financial crisis first exploded – five years! - does more than just boggle the mind. It empties the wallets of all of us whose taxes were spent rescuing the most disastrously-run bank in the western world.

If ever we had dared to dream that we would get all of that £46bn bailout money back, we should wake up now. It ain’t happening. Not soon. Probably not ever.

Furthermore, if we ever thought we could rely on RBS to expand lending to the small businesses who are being starved of capital, we should think again. Just look at those newly-reduced capital ratios.

The company is right to have stopped the bonuses of its top eight executives. Sadly, in the topsy-turvy world of financial services, it’s also probably right to insist on being able to pay the insane going rate for its investment bankers – word in the City is that the banks are likely to start recruiting again this year, making it harder to retain staff. The RBS duck is lame enough as it is, without a brain drain.

That’s yet another grotesque irritant in a saga in which it’s hard to find positives anywhere. But there is perhaps one thing.

As stock markets and governments rejoice in the early signs of economic recovery, RBS remind us sharply: the financial world is still far from fixed.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in