Sorry to break the news to you but Christmas is cancelled…
3 years ago in the middle of the financial crisis when some of the best known banks in the world were on the verge of collapsing, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was rescued by the British tax payers to the tune of £45 billion.
Since then the bank has been under a lot of scrutiny. Not just from the point of whether it would survive but also when it would turn things around so that the business became profitable and the tax payer would start to get their money back.
Along with lots of other companies that have suffered in the crisis, RBS has undertaken a cost cutting exercise over the last couple of years.
Chris Kyle, the CFO of the Investment Banking division of RBS yesterday announced some additional cut backs to his staff.
An internal memo to his staff told them amongst other things that:
– No-one will be given a new Blackberry phone or other handset.
– There will be no magazine or newspapers subscriptions (I guess this now means that they won’t be able to do the daily FT crossword over morning coffee in the office)
– People working late in the office will not be able to claim a taxi expense to take them home unless they are working past 10pm (it used to be a 9pm cut off)
The bank has also banned all staff entertaining for the rest of the year so there will be no bank funded Christmas party for the RBS investment bankers and instead the bankers will have to pay for their office Christmas party themselves.
Now, whilst some people will think this is good cost control some others may feel that this is just “window dressing” to give the impression that the investment bankers’ excessive remuneration and benefits are being stopped.
Some of the RBS employees may well be a bit upset about having to pay for their Christmas party but last year over 300 key staff within the bank reportedly shared a bonus pot of £375 million which equals an average bonus of over £1.1 million each.
I guess these particular individuals are quite relaxed about buying their own Christmas drinks…
