RBS unveils huge losses

Banking giant, Royal Bank of Scotland, which also owns NatWest, has recently revealed huge losses of around £28 billion, which reflects the biggest loss in British commercial history.

RBS shares recently fell to the lowest level since the mid 1980s. A number of other banks also saw their share prices plummet, despite further attempts by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to shore up their finances with yet another bailout package that would come at the expense of the taxpayer.

Some industry officials have said that a full scale nationalisation of banks may still need to be considered, as the bailout packages were not going far enough to bring the situation under control. One industry official stated: ‘Sentiment is downbeat with confidence at zero. Frankly, investors are saying they are desperate to see audited accounts, spelling out in words of one syllable, the losses incurred by the individual banks in this most important of sectors.’

The Prime Minister has stated that he is angry at the irresponsible behaviour and risks that have been taken by the bank, and he stated: ‘Now we know that so much was lost in sub-prime loans in the US and now we know that some of that was related to the purchase of ABN Amro, I think people have a right to be angry that these write-offs are happening and that these write-offs were caused by decisions that were made about international investments that were clearly wrong investments.’

A senior official from RBS said: ‘We are making progress in recognising excess risk and dealing with it. In this context, the support we are receiving from Government benefits all our stakeholders and enables us to provide more customer support in return.’

Tags: bailout packages, history, package, rbs, prime minister, confidence, Banking, giant