RBS awards maximum bonuses despite losses

Royal Bank of Scotland has announced that despite losses of £1.1bn during 2010, it will still be paying out a total of £950m of bonuses to its employees.

The banking group, 84 per cent of which is owned by the British government, has declared that its recovery is "ahead of schedule". It has been recovering since record losses of £24bn in 2008, when it had to be bailed out with taxpayers' money.

Although the bonus pool was reduced from £1.3bn in 2009 to its current level of £950m in 2010, 34 per cent of revenue generated last year was used to pay the bank's investment bankers. This is up eight per cent from the 26 per cent used in 2009.

Len McCluskey, the general secretary of trade union Unite, condemned the coalition government's tolerance of the "greedy bankers" handsome self-rewards. He pointed out that whilst bonuses continued to flow, more than 21,000 staff had been sacked.

Read a full report at the Guardian. ·