RBS chief Hester waives bonus over IT meltdown

29 June 2012 | 4884 views | 1 Pound Coin Cash

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester says he will not take a bonus this year in the wake of last week's disastrous IT problems.

The bank has been struggling for days to clear a backlog of payments caused by a failed software update last week, causing chaos for thousands of Natwest, Ulster Bank and RBS customers.

In a BBC interview, Hester said: "I think it's inappropriate for me to have a bonus this year. We have let our customers down. That may have arisen from old systems and things that were from before my time but I think we could reasonably been expected to have improved things since then and clearly we didn't improve them enough so it wouldn't cross my mind to have a bonus this year."

Last year Hester's salary at the 82% taxpayer-owned bank was £1.2 million and he was forced into waiving his £963,000 all-shares bonus in the face of a public backlash.

On the systems failure, he told the BBC: "We're doing a very complete investigation to make sure we learn the lesson, place accountability and, more importantly, make it less likely to happen again."

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A Finextra member | 02 July, 2012, 12:11

When he took over the share price was 50p. Currently standing at 21.7p.

Can he remind us why he thinks he was going to earn a bonus this year ? Isn't a CEO's job (and bonus) about delivering returns to shareholders* ?

If its a 5 year job to return value then the bonus should come when the value is delivered (and if he did return the share price above and beyond expections then he should be well rewarded).

What he shouldn't be getting is a bonus in the interim.

*even if the company is 80% owned by the UK taxpayer.

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