Royal Bank of Scotland set to report up to £8Billion losses for 2013

Royal Bank of Scotland set to report up to £8bn losses for 2013
Unscheduled trading statement to reveal bank, 81% owned by taxpayer, hit by extra £2.9bn over conduct and mis-selling issues



Royal Bank of Scotland is on track to report up to £8bn in losses for 2013 after taking a fresh hit for conduct and mis-selling issues, forcing its top management to refuse any bonuses for the year.

In an unscheduled trading statement, the 81% taxpayer-owned bank revealed it would incur an extra £2.9bn of losses for conduct-related matters over the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US and mis-selling of payment protection insurance and interest rate swaps.

The additional costs come on top of losses of £4.5bn from the creation of a mini-bad bank inside RBS and, according to initial estimates, could drive the bank to losses of around £8bn by the time it reports its full-year results at the end of next month.

The move appears to push back any prospect of chancellor George Osborne selling off any of the taxpayer's stake, bought for £45bn during the banking crisis in 2008 and 2009.

Ross McEwan, who took over as chief executive on 1 October, had already said he would not a take a bonus for 2013 and the rest of his eight-strong executive committee will also forgo their multimillion-pound payments.

The New Zealander, promoted from running the retail bank after his predecessor Stephen Hester's sudden departure, said that the scale of the costs incurred from past mistakes had not been expected at the time of the bailout.

"They come in addition to the costs of restructuring the bank's bad assets and restoring its funding to prudent levels after the financial crisis. They were a key reason we took the difficult decisions to reset our capital position last November," McEwan said.

"At the peak of the financial crisis, RBS was the biggest bank in the world. When the crisis broke the bank was involved in a number of different businesses in multiple countries that have subsequently faced heavy scrutiny by customers and regulators. The scale of the bad decisions during that period means that some problems are still just emerging. The good news is we are now a much stronger bank and can manage these costs while still supporting our customers," he added.

The extra £2.9bn includes £1.9bn for various claims and past conduct issues facing the bank, most likely the potential cost of a settlement with US regulators over subprime mortgages, another £465m for PPI mis-selling, taking the total cost to £3.1bn, and another £500m for interest rate swap mis-sellling, taking the total to £1.3bn.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/27/royal-bank-scotland-report-losses-8bn-2013

I do hope no-one got a bonus     

They didn't not a single director.

Gordon nationalised this bank he and Fred were mates you know. I have a load of shares in this basket case of a bank. What a travesty of a business this truly is.

Meanwhile an even bigger travesty of a leader is doing his bit to ruin the taxpayers chances of getting their money back. That would be Milliband

But up to very recently, they were going to:

The government has defended its position on bonuses for bankers at Royal Bank of Scotland.

Both the prime minister and the chancellor said the government had ensured sufficient regulation of bankers and their pay.

Labour has demanded George Osborne block any attempt by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to pay bonuses of up to double its bankers' annual salary.

The government owns 80% of RBS and could block large bonuses.

Under EU rules, from 2015 RBS can only pay bonuses up to 200% of annual salary if shareholders approve the decision.

In the Commons Labour leader Ed Miliband pressed the prime minister on whether he would allow RBS bankers to receive bonuses worth double their annual salary.

David Cameron said he would veto any attempt by RBS to increase its overall pay and bonus bill at the investment bank.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25739565