Loss-making Royal Bank of Scotland hands £3.4m shares windfall to top executives

Royal Bank of Scotland has dished out a £3.4million shares windfall to its top executives – just over a week after the Government began selling its stake in the bank at a £1.1billion loss.

The bumper award has been divided between ten executives, including chief executive Ross McEwan. One of the biggest beneficiaries was IT boss Simon McNamara, who received shares worth £300,000.

This is despite a major IT failure in June, which led to 600,000 payments to customers going temporarily missing.

The shares are the first instalment of new fixed allowances which were introduced to dodge the EU bonus cap from Brussels.

The awards, paid twice a year by RBS (down 5.7p at 339p), compensate executives for the first six months of the year, topping up their salary and other benefits.

McEwan will donate his £500,001 to charity, once tax has been paid. But he still receives 95,318 shares worth around £330,000. This is the last instalment of a ‘golden hello’ payment to compensate him for bonuses he forfeited when he left Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Campaigners said the payouts would be ‘galling’ to the general public. The Government last week sold off 5.4pc of RBS, cutting its stake from 78 per cent to below 73 per cent but incurring a £1.1billion loss for taxpayers.

Luke Hildyard, deputy director of the High Pay Centre said: ‘There is huge amount of public anger over levels of bankers’ pay.

‘These payments – bonuses under a different name – demonstrate an arrogant lack of regard for public opinion. They are particularly galling, coming so soon after RBS shares were sold at a huge loss.’

The biggest winners were Mark Bailie and Chris Marks, who were appointed to run RBS’ investment bank after Rory Cullinan’s sudden departure this year. They received £483,558 each. Finance chief Ewen Stevenson received £399,000.