Royal Bank of Scotland appoints Standard Life chief executive
Royal Bank of Scotland has been forced to hire Sir Sandy Crombie in the role of the "champion of investor interests" in a move designed to take off some of the heat directed at the Royal Bank of Scotland board. The company has been under pressure since agreeing a substantial pension arrangement with outgoing chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin and a change in the investor relations department was inevitable.
However, many people are dismayed that we have arrived at a situation where a bank such as Royal Bank of Scotland is not able to look after its own interests and those of investors side-by-side. However, it is not just Royal Bank of Scotland which has suffered from the ongoing demise of the UK financial sector as risks taken the past have come home to roost. The sector as a whole is under significant pressure from regulators, consumers and the government and the banking arena we see today be very very different in the future.
Rightly or wrongly it looks as though the UK government will play a substantial part, alongside the regulators, in the make-up of the financial sector of the future. While many of the "free market" arrangements of the past will disappear it does seem that now is the time for change.
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