By taking four years to produce its report on the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland Group (LON:RBS), the Financial Services Authority has been able to make the maximum use of hindsight. But if today’s caution was applied, would RBS ever have taken over NatWest?
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Should we have had a right to know about Sir Fred Goodwin’s affair with a RBS (LON:RBS) colleague before it was revealed in the Houses of Parliament? My answer is that judges should not have protected him with a super-injunction, but that it is not for peers to override the judges.
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Of course Sir Fred Goodwin will not be punished for captaining Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (LON:RBS) when it ran into the rocks.
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BP Plc’s (LON:BP) value has fallen as far as RBS (LON:RBS) has, but this is a different sort of crisis. The bank ran out of money but BP still has oil.
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The public-sector job cuts have started.
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The stock market’s reaction to Prudential’s (LON:PRU) planned record rights issue is ungrateful. After all the mega-refinancings to fill black holes in balance sheets, this is a share issue based on expansion rather than rescue.
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Why bother being boss of a big bank if you are not allowed to take the rewards? Lloyds Banking Group’s chief executive has followed Barclays’ and RBSs in bowing to public pressure in rejecting bonuses. Yet while they make the sacrifice, bankers at lower levels keep their windfalls.
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If we don’t want banks running private-equity operations, why do we want private equity operations running banks? In the eagerness to come up with a new banking model for the post-crash era, we mustn’t simply welcome any alternative.
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Ministers should not be getting tough with RBS (LON:RBS) for paying bonuses to investment bankers – it should be getting tough with the bank for paying any bonuses at all, even to counter staff at NatWest or Coutts.
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Nevermind that the Bank of England kept secret for a year its massive loan to HBoS and RBS (LON:RBS), why on earth did it choose to break its silence on the day Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) announces its record rights issue?
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