New RBS chief Ross McEwan wins £3.2m shares incentive

Ross McEwan, newly-hired head of RBS’s UK retail banking operations, has been awarded shares worth £3.2 million under incentive schemes.

The award is compensation for share entitlements that he forfeited by leaving his previous employer, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, to succeed Brian Hartzer.

RBS is poised to leave the government’s insurance scheme covering tens of billions of pounds of toxic assets, as early as October.

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Chief executive Stephen Hester has spoken of his desire to withdraw from the Asset Protection Scheme (APS) which costs the bank £500 million a year.

The move had been expected by the end of this year and speculation yesterday suggested it could now happen as early as mid-October.

The APS insures RBS against losses on about £100 billion of assets. It is understood staffing at the agency running it has been cut.

Hester described the cover provided by the APS as “essentially worthless” and said he could not envisage a scenario under which RBS would be able to make a claim. The cover only becomes active if RBS makes losses of more than £60bn on the assets concerned.