Tremendous losses of Royal Bank of Scotland

A pre-tax loss of £691m for the first half of 2008 was reported by Royal Bank of Scotland, the owner of NatWest. In banking history it is the second largest loss that ever occurred.

According to the reports the banking group was struck by credit write-downs of £5.9bn (against a £5bn profit for the same period last year) due to the credit crunch affecting the value of its mortgages and assets, with many from Dutch bank ABN Amro which it acquired last year.

Sir Fred Goodwin, RBS chief executive notes that the bank showed "good performance" in the UK retail and commercial banking division with 12% growth in personal savings and 10% in mortgage balances. Besides, the difficult environment didn’t thwart growth in Asia, the Gulf and the US.

In light of expected to slow across many countries the bank is determined to position its businesses to make them supportive of their customers with operating with a "risk appetite appropriate to market conditions".