Media Spotlight: Rebooting RBS, presented by Douglas Fraser
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What a difference a year makes. Last October global banking giant the Royal Bank of Scotland was believed to be on a knife edge.
Once a powerhouse signifying the excesses of the boom times, the bank was forced to stand by and watch the value of its shares decline on a daily basis. Eventually, it found itself forced into a bailout which seemed only to confirm to the rest of financial services sector that it was in desperate need of help.
It posted the biggest loss in corporate history and former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin went on to become one of the most vilified figures in the press over his refusal to back down over his gargantuan pension settlement.
But almost a year on it seems the bank - and the brand - may have turned a corner. In Rebooting RBS, aired on BBC Radio 4 last week, business editor for BBC Scotland Douglas Fraser spoke to staff at the embattled bank to discuss life at the company before and after last year’s crisis.
Many interviewees were surprisingly candid.
“I measure myself far less against competitors now than I did five or 10 years ago,” says Peter Ibbetson, chairman, small business. “Back then it was really important that we were winning. Now it’s more - are we doing the right thing for businesses?”
An ex-employee who worked for the bank for more than 20 years ago went even further, describing the Goodwin era as being haunted by a culture of fear.
The new man at the helm, chief executive Stephen Hester, seems to have changed all that. The bank’s opulent global headquarters on the outskirts of Edinburgh remains but some significant changes are afoot.
Areas once designated for senior management have been opened up to more junior staff while Hester has done away with the corporate jet and the Formula 1 sponsorship, although he insists the latter decision has nothing to do with image and is more about appealing to what he calls core clients.
It is clear Hester has ushered in a new dawn at the bank, and this trend towards openness and transparency has earned the bank and its new boss respect.
He tells Fraser that rebuilding the bank as a strong financial institution matters much more to him than “forever hand-wringing about the past”.
“Despite the kicking we received in the worst possible way last year, not one of our businesses anywhere in the world has lost material number of clients,” he adds. “I believe changing culture takes years rather than months but I believe it’s clear where we are going in this respect.”
And with the change in culture the public attitude to the bank seems to shifting too.
Ibbetson recalls the times when, if he was sitting in a pub and someone asked what he did for a living and which company and he worked for, he was reluctant to reveal the terrible truth that he was a banker at RBS.
“That situation changed a few weeks ago when I had lunch with an MP,” he says. “The MP was asked what he did for a living and he said, ‘I’m a banker’ rather than admitting he was an MP,” he says.
It would seem the heat of the media spotlight and the scorn of the public has moved on from RBS-bashing. For now, at least.
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