RBS to reignite bankers' pay row with bonus pot of £550m set to be revealed amid £8bn annual loss

Taxpayer owned Royal Bank of Scotland is set to reignite the row over pay tomorrow when it will reportedly reveal a £550million staff bonus pot despite slumping into the red with an expected £8billion annual loss.
The lender has agreed the bonus windfall with UK Financial Investments, the body charged with managing government stakes in banks, according to Sky News.
This would be a drop on the £607million haul for 2012, although this is partly expected given the significant headcount reduction in its investment banking team.

Big loss: RBS, which is just over 80 per cent owned by the taxpayer, is thought to be heading for an annual loss of close to £8billion for 2013

The bonus haul will be controversial given the losses expected at RBS and as a strategy review by chief executive Ross McEwan is likely to reveal a major downsizing as the bank refocuses on retail customers, small businesses and larger corporates.
There are fears over large scale job losses as reports suggest its 120,000 strong workforce could be reduced by around a quarter, although much of this is thought likely to come from plans to sell off businesses and exit from many of its riskier investment bank activities, as well as much of its overseas operation.

Mr McEwan will also give his verdict on the group's troubled Ulster Bank subsidiary, which has been put under the microscope as part of the group-wide review.
RBS is expected to make heavy cuts to the 11,000 jobs in its investment bank, including a retreat from its US and Asian markets businesses.
The planned sale of its US retail bank Citizens will remove 18,500 jobs, while further reductions will come from its float of Williams & Glyn's, which employs about 4,500 staff.
The bank's full-year results will lay bare the scale of the turnaround job that lies ahead and will come in stark contrast to the fortunes of fellow bailed out player Lloyds Banking Group, which returned to bottom line profit for the first time in three years in 2013.

RBS boss: New chief executive Ross McEwan has already said he would not take a bonus for 2013 or 2014

RBS, which is just over 80 per cent owned by the Government, is thought to be heading for an annual loss of close to £8billion for 2013 after it stunned the City last month by revealing a string of scandal-related financial charges worth more than £3billion.
Its latest round of provisions include £1.9billion to cover mainly US action over mortgage-backed financial products, an extra £465million to payment protection insurance (PPI) compensation and another £500million for mis-selling of interest rate swaps to small businesses.
The bank was already facing bad debt write downs of up to £4.5billion in the creation of an internal 'bad bank' to wind down toxic loans.
The losses also come after a calamitous year for IT glitches at RBS, prompting Mr McEwan to admit it had failed to invest properly in systems for decades and pledge hundreds of millions of pounds in new investment.
RBS has sought to deflect flak over bonuses by scrapping 2013 payouts for its eight-strong executive committee in the wake of its recent shock provisions update, while Mr McEwan has already said he would not take a bonus for 2013 or 2014.
But any banker windfalls will court controversy given that it is still heavily loss-making and under investigation over allegations of unscrupulous treatment of small firms.
The group is facing a series of investigations after a shocking report from government adviser Lawrence Tomlinson accused RBS of driving firms to collapse in order to profit from their property assets/

The bank has fuelled anger further over bonuses by recently confirming it was considering plans to request shareholder permission to pay bonuses of up to double an employee's salary for 2014 onwards - the maximum allowed under new EU rules to cap payouts.
It will no doubt also be pressed on whether it plans to follow the lead of rivals such as Barclays and HSBC by introducing monthly allowance payments to sidestep the rules further and boost potential bonuses.
On Monday, HSBC confirmed plans for its boss Stuart Gulliver to swerve the EU bonus cap as his pay package soared to £8million - making him Britain's best paid banker.
The UK-based global banking giant said Mr Gulliver's base salary will remain at £1.25million for this year but that he will receive a fixed pay allowance of £1.7million, to be awarded in shares on a quarterly basis.
The news came as HSBC today announced profits up 9 per cent to £13.6billion in 2013.
Last week, Lloyds Banking Group came under fire for handing its chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio a £1.7million shares bonus, albeit one which he will not be able to collect until 2019.
Lloyds also confirmed it had hiked its bonus pool by 8 per cent to £395million, which Horta-Osorio described as a ‘small increase’ given the improvement.
And the increase in bonuses at Lloyds came just days after Barclays hiked its bonus pool by 10 per cent to £2.38billion.
Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins, who had already waved his bonus of up to £2.75million, said paying for talented staff was in the ‘best interests’ of shareholders.