Bad lending

I read with dismay of yet another case where a developer arranged to borrow money from RBS on condition that two sums were made available, only for RBS to renege on the deal after lending the first sum, leaving the developer high and dry (your report, 14 January). It is yet another case of banks being run by folk who don't understand business.

It needs to be made plain to the banks – publicly owned – and politicians that a return to sensible core practice is necessary.

The economics of trade underpin the traditions of these islands and have created the wealth that made a welfare state possible.

If RBS had made good on both loans – and honoured its word – it would likely have got all the money back and some profit. Good core business.

It also seems to me that RBS needs to wake up. Still, I cannot help thinking there is something intrinsically wrong with that organisation. Lending successfully is a bank's core business. That is how they make money.

Squandering profit on huge bonuses that amount to billions of pounds seems to me, as a taxpayer and part-owner of that bank, very wrong. While RBS is state-owned such bonuses, which are part of the public purse, could be better spent paying off the largest public deficit these islands have had in recent decades.

KES SMITH

Old Inn Rd

Aberdeen