Even before all the IT related problems at Ulster Bank – the RBS chairman was not too impressed with the financial performance of the bank.
Back in early June in an interview with the Financial Times – Sir Philip Hampton said that he was “most troubled” by Ulster Bank
RBS is 82% owned by the UK taxpayer and it trades as Ulster Bank in Ireland. Like all Irish banks it has suffered large losses in the property boom and bust.
During his interview, Sir Philip said the impairment charges run up by Ulster had been “huge”, amounting to £12billion GBP. On top of that RBS has had to pump a further £6bn GBP of new capital into Ulster Bank . He also said Ulster Bank would suffer further impairments.
Sir Philip said that when RBS started implementing a recovery plan three years ago the bank “simply didn’t expect the scale of problems in Ireland“. He described it as “the single thing” that “has most troubled us”.
I wonder how he feels about Ulster Bank this week with all the extra hassle and costs from a bank that is already losing RBS millions?
The staff haven’t got much to look forward to once this crisis is over – because back in January 2012 Ulster Bank confirmed it is cutting 950 jobs from its branches on both sides of the Irish border . The bank said 600 posts would go in the Irish Republic and 350 would be lost across Northern Ireland. It said it could not rule out compulsory redundancies.