Tight-knit bunch

ROYAL Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Philip Hampton’s approval of Stephen Hester’s modest pay of £1.2 million per annum plus £780,000 bonus and £400,000 pension contribution (your report, 12 February) is hardly surprising. He would say that, wouldn’t he?

Bankers are a tight-knit bunch, as has been demonstrated time and again, as with the recently published news that disgraced banker Peter Cummings had given a £12.2m loan to his old mentor and former chairman of the Bank of Scotland, Gavin Masterton, for one of his companies. A loan with no repayment for 35 years; repayable in 2043!

I quite like the terms of that sort of loan, which Mr Masterton’s lawyers described as “being approved in the conventional way and in accordance with bank policies”, but I am not a banker so, unlike Mr Masterton, will never have the thrill of experiencing bank policies that mean I will be due to repay a huge sum to the bank when I am 103!

Don’t you just love bankers.

Tom Minogue

Victoria Terrace

Dunfermline