IT seems like hardly a week goes by without Royal Bank of Scotland becoming embroiled in some form of controversy.
But it is hard to escape the feeling that momentum is finally building behind the bank, at least in terms of its underlying performance.
Royal Bank, which remains 71 per cent in the hands of UK taxpayers, made a third quarter profit of £392 million. It means the Edinburgh-based lender has reported profits for three quarters in a row for the first time since 2014.
That run has needless been helped by the bank’s progress in dealing with a multitude of legacy issues, which have weighed heavily on its ledger since being bailed out by the UK Government at the height of the financial crisis.
With the European Commission approving its remedies for its Williams & Glyn branch network, settling with the US Department of Justice over mis-selling of residential mortgage-backed securities is the last of the major legacy hurdles to overcome, albeit the scale of the fine it will have to pay is unknown. Once that is settled, the prospect of the government beginning to sell down its majority stake will not seem so remote, though the share price remains well adrift of the break-even point.
Of course, it would be wrong to suggest that everything in the garden is rosy.
After a recent flurry of negative headlines, which has seen the bank face renewed criticism over its treatment of small business customers, and allegations of sexual harassment, the lender, it could be argued, needs to engender some reputational, as well as continuing financial, rehabilitation.
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 here