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RBS chief executive warns of further hauntings from the past

Troubled RBS has posted an £8.2 billion operating loss for its 2013 year, from total income of £2.3 billion.

The 81% government-owned bank said the last five years had be “extraordinary” and cleaning up previous failings was bearing a heavy cost.

A statement in the lengthy results document read: “Even by recent standards, 2013 was a difficult year. Regulatory fines, wide-ranging customer complaints, technology problems and public questioning of our integrity all weighed heavily, and bring into sharp focus the job we have at hand.”

The bank spent £4.8 billion on establishing its RBS Capital Resolution division, the internal “bad bank” used to manage down around £38 billion of assets to release capital.

Extensive restructuring is now planned to make over half of RBS employees customer facing, getting rid of some non-customer related functions.

The bank’s chief executive Ross McEwan said in a statement: “RBS isn’t just any bank. Few, if any, comparisons do justice to the scale of the turnaround that RBS required.

“We’ve got to a point of safety and soundness through a steady focus and patient determination. There will be more things from our past that come back to haunt us, but they will be fewer in number.

“Over time, with steady focus and disciplined delivery, the new RBS will emerge. The businesses we operate will be highly effective and relentless in their pursuit of delivering service that makes us number one for customers.“

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .