Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is a publicly-owned bank. The overwhelming majority of its shares are in state hands, 73% of the equity. Yet it was the only major bank to fail outright the recent ‘stress test’ of its balance sheet conducted by the Bank of England. The bank is a basket-case. It is costing […]
Posts Tagged ‘RBS’
Five good reasons why Osborne’s selling off RBS and Lloyds is wrong
Aug 9th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Osborne as usual is taking advantage of Labour’s distraction at this time to sell off RBS and Lloyds to the private sector at a huge losses to the taxpayer, to accountability of the banks, and to the future of the British economy. This is motivated by his ambition eclipse even the Thatcherite privatisation boom of […]
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Privatising RBS: a triple whammy against taxpayers, economy and reform
Jun 21st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.Why sell off the 80% stake in RBS when the Brown government bailed it out in 2008 at a cost to taxpayers of £45bn, yet today’s share price would fetch only some £32bn? That’s a £13bn loss for taxpayers which, as it happens, is almost exactly the sum that Osborne is pledged to raise by […]
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Even the Tories’ naked bribery has now gone pear-shaped
Apr 21st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.There is a very noticeable difference between the way that the Tories and Labour have conducted this election. The Tories have used the twin-prong approach: personal vilification which has proved counter-productive and now blatant giveaways (of other people’s money) to try to produce a false feel-good factor. However, no serious policy proposals for the country’s increasingly […]
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Big four banks (with 1,629 subsidiaries in tax havens) are rotten heart of UK economy
Mar 30th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.The more that comes to light about the nefarious activities of the Big four banks, the more extraordinary it is that these banks (a) demand a return to business as usual (which of course caused the financial crash in the first place), (b) continue to fight back against any reforms of a dysfunctional finance sector, feeble […]
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Lloyds & RBS fined £90m yesterday, but (courtesy of Ed Balls) do they give a toss?
Dec 13th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Hardly a day goes by without the big banks being penalised, for the umpteenth time, with a record fine. Yesterday Lloyds was fined £28m for ‘seriously flawed’ sales practices, while RBS was forced to pay the US authorities £62m for breaching US sanctions by dealing with clients in Iran, Sudan, Myanmar, and Cuba. In the […]
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Bail-out banks need a strong-arm, not a sell-off
Aug 4th, 2013 by Ben Folley.The announcement that Lloyds TSB are back in profit has automatically triggered discussion of the government selling off its 39% share in the bank, back to the private sector. For Labour, it should trigger a discussion on an increasingly interventionist approach to the economy. Britain’s privately-owned banks were bailed out with billions from the taxpayer […]
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Unite backing for continued public ownership of RBS
Jun 17th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.Ahead of the report by the parliamentary commission on banking standards, due to report back this week on the future of RBS, Unite, which represents workers at RBS and 120,000 workers altogether in financial services, has called on the government to commit to the full nationalisation of RBS in which the state currently has an […]
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Ed Miliband is right, Britain lacks local banks – RBS could fill that void
Mar 26th, 2013 by Tony Greenham.Why not convert a large, publicly owned bank into a network of local banks like those that operate successfully in Germany? Ed Miliband’s speech to the British Chambers of Commerce marked an important step towards filling a vital gap in our banking system – the place where you live. The UK banking system, dominated by […]
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From BCCI to Standard Chartered: a brief alternative history of investment banking
Aug 8th, 2012 by David Osler.The Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which collapsed in 1991, was not widely known as the Bank of Crooks and Cocaine International for nothing. True, the Bank of England was a bit sniffy about it, largely on account of its connections to the Middle East, and refused to grant BCCI full banking status. Neverthless, the regulatory authority […]
