THE Royal Bank of Scotland, as we still know it here where it was born, has more than nine thousand operating systems within its companies around the world. Rather like the British Empire at its height there are so many languages something has to give.

Yesterday New Zealander Ross McEwan revealed the latest fist he has made of turning this sprawling behemoth back into a functioning bank. It remains difficult to tell whether light at the end of the tunnel is real or may be simply a beacon signifying more trouble ahead.

He predicted another “noisy year” as RBS paid the continued £1.3 billion cost of fines and penalties for its past conduct and set aside further sums for future pain. He announced half-year losses of £153m as the shares slipped, although there were quarterly gains.

We know that for Chancellor George Osborne his guiding principle will be the instant he can commence the big sell-off of the taxpayers’ 78% share, and some envisaged him attempting that as soon as September.

But of far more importance for Scotland, and arguably for the rest of the UK and beyond, is the need for the whole, complex, edifice to make sense once more as a cohesive business and to show ethical lessons have been learned.

One of the effects of the expansion of the RBS empire as it swallowed other banks across the globe was the accumulation of properties and IT operating systems as the behemoth developed, all of which are still being unpicked.

Even in its home city of Edinburgh there is a pressing need to rationalise and close properties and ship out to the RBS HQ by the airport.

Mr McEwan gives every impression of being someone who understands the imperative of turning RBS back into a cohesive operation, but every time he gets down to trying to run a normal banking operation another landmine lurks round the corner.

This could be penalties for mis-selling payment protection insurance or foreign exchange rigging at home, or fines by the US authorities for misleading investors on the worth of sub-prime mortgages before Mr McEwan's tenure.

RBS yesterday posted an operating profit for the second quarter of the year but there was no sense of celebration around this event. Indeed the opposite was the case, as it was confirmed that RBS is not likely to be in a position to start paying dividends until at least 2017.

Will that stop the Chancellor going for a sell-off by the end of the year? Probably not. We know to our cost that RBS was the flagship of a particular era of thrusting, confident Scotland, but we also know that unless we build a replacement based on some kind of ethical vision it could happen all over again.

Paying the costs for consumer mis-selling of insurance, foreign exchange rigging, and murky sub-prime deals in the US are all prices which have to be paid, but more important for the future is that lessons have actually been learned.