We need to get radical with RBS

The search is on to replace Stephen Hester at the helm of the Royal Bank of Scotland. But what the bank needs is real change, says Matthew Lynn - and not another faceless banker.

Should the Royal Bank of Scotland be privatised next year, or should the government hang on for a higher price? Should the Treasury aim to maximise the cash raised from a share listing, or would it be better to give them away to the public? Most of the talk around the search for a successor to Stephen Hester RBS's outgoing chief executive has centred on how quickly it should be returned to the private sector and in what form.

But this overlooks a more important issue. What kind of bank do we want RBS to be? Britain is lumbered with a reckless financial industry with a record of abusing its customers that can only be sustained because it's very hard for new banks to join the market. Putting another banker in charge of RBS won't change that. The Treasury needs to find someone from a completely different industry, who knows about customer service and innovation.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.