IT could have been a rare week of good news for Royal Bank of Scotland.
Some financial analysts forecast that the bank will announce its first annual profit in a decade when chief executive Ross McEwan presents its financial results on Friday morning.
But, as so often seems to be the case at the state-backed lender, the past is never too far away.
The publication by the Treasury Committee yesterday of the full findings of a report into the bank’s controversial Global Restructuring Group (GRG) amounts to a further, heavy wound to the bank’s image.
In some ways we have become almost inured to the revelations which appear to come thick and fast from the Edinburgh-based lender. Last month, we had the publication of an internal memo written by a former GRG employee which, under a section entitled “Rope”, urged colleagues to “let customers hang themselves”.
If that offered a disturbing trailer into the culture that pervaded at the controversial business turnaround unit, then the full report, published under parliamentary privilege, was the full X-rated feature film. Instances of staff mimicking a foreign national and threatening customers with insolvency will make for yet more painful reading for top brass at the bank.
It was summed up well by Laith Khalaf, analyst at the stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown. Mr Khalaf said: “This report shines a light on the gruesome culture within GRG in its dealing[s] with RBS business customers. It paints a very sorry picture of the excesses of the banking industry during the financial crisis and in its aftermath.
“Misconduct has been a significant millstone for the banking industry and its customers, costing billions in fines and compensation, as well as the untold consumer detriment and reputational damage that has been done over the years.”
The lender admitted that the report makes difficult reading. But it emphasised again that the culture at the bank and the way it operates have changed “fundamentally” since the period under review, which focuses on the years between 2008 and 2013.
That may well be the case. However, there is little doubt the bank is struggling to break free from its troubled past.
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