Member Article

RBS anticipates Libor fine

The Royal Bank of Scotland anticipates that it will be fined for its part in the Libor rate rigging scandal, according to chief executive Stephen Hester.

The state backed bank is under investigation by the Financial Services Authority over its role in attempting to manipulate benchmark borrowing rates.

Last month Barclays was fined £290 million by UK and US regulators after it was found guilty of rate fixing, resulting in a number of executives, including boss Bob Diamond, resigning over the controversy.

Mr Hester said: “RBS is one of the banks tied-up in Libor, we’ll have our day in that particular spotlight as well.

This admission follows the computer meltdown at RBS and Natwest which hit millions and customers, and comes ahead of the bank’s first year results which will be published on Friday. Following the IT problems Mr Hester waived his annual bonus and said that the issues could have been avoided if more had been spent on upgrading the bank’s existing computer systems rather than developing new ones.

He added: “RBS has seen a big mushrooming in spending on technology.

“With hindsight maybe a bit more of that increase in spend should have been in the core taken-for-granted systems that work every day.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .