The quid pro quo for the massive UK government support for Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group might look as if it will benefit the consumer significantly by increasing competition, and at last rein in sector bonuses.

However, dig just a bit deeper, and it brings as many questions as answers.

Discretionary bonuses, we learned yesterday when the Treasury pledged a further £25.5bn of capital for Royal and another £5.7bn for Lloyds, will have to be paid in shares and not cash to any employees of these banks earning more than £39,000-a-year.

This was being trumpeted as one of the main concessions wrung from the banks by the Treasury in return for the latest taxpayer support.

However, it would appear to do little, if anything, to curb the bonus culture in banks which got us into this mess in the first place.

This is not to say that many employees of Royal and Lloyds, who were entirely blameless in their employers’ near-collapses, do not deserve bonuses.

The problem continues to lie mainly in the investment banking sector and there is a principle at stake, whether bonuses are paid in shares

or cash.

And here the clamour of investment bankers to return to the days of big bonuses, while unemployment continues to surge as a result of a recession caused by these so-called Masters of the Universe, is utterly tasteless.

It is easy to argue that the taxpayer is footing the bill for past bumper bonuses for the investment and corporate bankers at Royal. Lloyds does not have significant investment banking operations but its corporate bankers, perhaps most significantly those in the bad-debt-riven HBOS part, also earned huge bonuses in the boom days.

What is crucial here is that, in many cases, these bonuses were granted for actions which turned out to have destroyed value, rather than created it. The sum of this destruction ran into tens of billions of pounds, for which the taxpayer is now on the hook.

But the investment bankers, whether at institutions such as Barclays which suffered huge asset write-downs but are not seeing any restrictions on bonuses because they did not take government support or at the state-controlled Royal, are not penitent. Far from it. They appear to feel hard done by, as if the very question of any curb on their bonuses might challenge their often-inflated idea of their self-worth.

Under the plans announced yesterday, they can still receive bonuses. And guaranteed bonuses, which do not depend on performance, look likely to continue.

Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal, was yesterday signalling the latest restrictions on bonuses could cause him further problems in keeping investment banking staff.

With Barclays not sparing the horses in its rush to make the most of its rivals’ troubles in investment banking, one can have some sympathy with his view. Barclays is dangling guaranteed bonuses in a recruitment drive which would have seemed scarcely believable a year ago - when the world was looking into the chasm created by the global financial sector.

The fact that Hester was already talking about looking at other types of retention packages for investment bankers, even as the ink was still drying on the latest bail-out paperwork, signals the UK government’s latest attempt to curb rewards could well be ineffective.

Some kind of global solution still looks vital here, to avoid early re-occurrence of the banking catastrophe which sent the major industrialised nations plunging into deep recession. Whether such a solution will materialise is another matter entirely, given investment bankers still appear motivated by money and by little, if anything, else.

There are also big questions over the Treasury’s promise of an increase in UK banking competition arising from the disposals of businesses forced on the main UK-taxpayer-supported banks by the European Commission.

One big question is whether serious buyers will emerge for the 185-branch Lloyds TSB Scotland network, which Lloyds Banking Group is being forced to sell, or for the 318 branches to be sold by Royal, which are concentrated in north-west England.

Tesco Bank, one of the most powerful looking of the challengers to the big established banks, does not appear to be interested in branches.

Virgin Group’s Richard Branson has said he will take a look, as he mulls how to build a bank.

But Branson is presumably looking at a UK-wide presence. It has proved notoriously difficult to build a UK-wide bank from a regional network, as evidenced by Glasgow-based Clydesdale Bank and its sister bank Yorkshire.

Clydesdale and Yorkshire parent National Australia Bank might also take a look at some of the assets being sold but it remains to be seen whether it would buy.

There has been vague talk of Middle Eastern or US buyers, but nothing much specific in terms of names. Continental European buyers have also been mentioned, but it remains to be seen what interest emerges from there.

And there has been the customary talk of a group of Scottish businessmen buying Lloyds TSB Scotland. A nice idea but it remains to be seen whether this has any more legs than recent similar notions which have come to nought.

There has been much talk from the Treasury about three new high street banks in the UK, with the “good bank” bit of Newcastle-based Northern Rock up for sale.

However, it will be interesting to see in a year or two’s time whether or not such a scenario has come to pass. It looks doubtful at best.

Other assets up for grabs include Lloyds’ Cheltenham & Gloucester mortgage business and Royal Bank of Scotland’s Direct Line, Churchill, Green Flag, and Privilege insurance businesses.

Royal’s insurance businesses have been up for sale before and this protracted auction failed ultimately to find a buyer willing to pay an acceptable price. A flotation looks likely, and this could be up to four years away.

While the European Commission has called for big asset sales from Royal and Lloyds, these institutions will have plenty of time to dispose of the businesses earmarked. The EC will not force a fire-sale and the banks can go back for further discussions if they struggle to find buyers.

Meanwhile, Royal and Lloyds still have UK government targets to increase lending to businesses and homeowners by £39bn. However, as long as they can show they have tried their best, no sanctions will be imposed if these targets are not met.

People should not expect the promised increase in banking competition to explode on to the high street soon. Nor should they expect the return of plentiful lending or a quick end to higher fees being charged by banks.