Difficult times6 Jun 2018 14:45
Government may or may not have helped price .
Two things that certainly have not was money and time ( at least 3 billion) wasted trying to set up the separate Williams and Glyns Bank and EEC insisting on fire sale of assets like Citizens Bank etc at knockdown prices just after the rescue .
I think the other factors are inability to make consistent if any profit in last 7 to 8 years and the RBS regretable involvement seemingly in most banking wrong doings over the years .
Hopefully these legacy issues have washed out and have been learnt from .
Although Banks seem to go through a cycle of lending generously and rashly - followed by bad debts - realising what they have done,they then tidying up their loans , lending more responsibly for a while . Bad debts go down and reasonable profits made .
Then sadly it seems they are drawn, like moths to candle,s to relax lending rules start to push loans etc - during this period their profits ( and share price ) goes up
Then three or four years later the loans etc start to go bad and the cycle repeats . At which point proftts (and share price go ) down bad debt and losses go up.
My guess is we are at that point in the cycle where RBS will be deciding to push money out - which if not for government shareholding and all other issues - would see share price start to rise .
I think they have probably put right most things - although their ability to provide an unpleasant surprise should not be under estimated . The staff that have learned the lessons from the last ten years will be moving on , retiring or may even have forgotten them .
This is only my simple and slightly cynical understanding of how banking has worked in last twenty years
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