ONCE upon a time in a land that now seems far, far away, people bought bank shares because they were seen as safe, boring and good dividend payers.
Then came the financial crisis. Share prices tumbled, and dividends were slashed.
In the case of part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group they halted altogether.
Obscured by the customary clouds of rage that herald the start of the banks' latest bonus round, a new sheaf of brokers' notes on RBS has highlighted how far we are from returning to this previous normality.
Far from considering restarting dividend payments, RBS faces a major task to build up its capital cushion to level regulators find acceptable.
Dividends are at least another two years away.
This is not simply grounds for a grumble between the well-heeled private investor and his stockbroker.
All of us have an interest through the Government's 82% stake in the bank.
It will struggle to sell any shares until, at the very least, dividends become a realistic prospect.
We could blame bonuses. The Bank of England has warned banks to hold back on pay until their capital is rebuilt.
But RBS, of course, wants to stop top staff defecting to rivals with looser purse strings.
Five years after the crisis began we have a financial system that favours the well-paid investment banker over the humble taxpayer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article