Shredded

I have just read a book called Shredded: Inside the Royal Bank of Scotland, The Bank that Broke Britain by Ian Fraser. RBS was one of the Too-Big-To-Fail Banks in the UK. Fraser tells an incredible story. The greed, incompetence and immorality of some of the bankers is amazing.

• The bank sent millions of pounds on a corporate jet, but its IT systems were so shaky that bank managers had very inadequate information for making decisions.
• The bank engaged in devious activities to suck people and businesses into increased debt.
• Although bank had to be bailed out, it was ruthless in dealing with small business that owed it money. Many people lost their businesses and were ruined.
• Senior managers contused to accept million dollar bonuses, while the bank was reporting massive losses.
• The managers who had overseen the disaster continued to receive million dollar pensions, while junior staff who lost their jobs wore forced to give up their redundancy payments.
• After being rescued by the government, the culture in the bank did not change. RBS continued to manipulate the LIBOR rate in ways that cost business huge amounts of money.
• The men who destroyed the Royal bank of Scotland continue to deny responsibility, pretending it was bad luck, or blaming it on wider economic events.
• The politicians were out of their depth and made serious makes. People who were surprised by the crisis are now trying to resolve it.

The culture of banking is still seriously rotten.