Scrapping RBS’s toxic brand should be a step towards a final break-up

Royal Bank of Scotland is at last about to dump the ‘RBS’ logotype promoted by its fallen chieftain Fred Goodwin, who thought ‘Scotland’ too parochial for a bank with global ambitions, though he was famously keen on royal connections. The wonder is that this decision has taken seven-and-a-half years since the bank was saved by £46 billion of taxpayers’ money.I suppose Goodwin’s successors, now led by Ross McEwan, have had too many other fires to fight, what with losses piling upon losses (first-quarter results twice as bad as last year’s), delays in the spin-off of the Williams & Glyn subsidiary, computer problems, and a looming scandal in the Swiss branch of Coutts, the group’s wealth arm.

But it was ever thus in large banking groups, and recognition that the parent brand was terminally tainted — while those of subsidiaries such as NatWest and Ulster Bank were still capable of rehabilitation — should have come much sooner.