Royal Bank of Scotland has received approval from Treasury agency UK Financial Investments to pay about 550 million pounds in staff bonuses for 2013. The bank is expected to disclose the proposed bonuses when it announces its annual earnings, estimated at a loss of about 8 billion pounds. The bank’s CEO Ross McEwan is also expected to unveil a strategic review of its investment banking and international operations in which the group could shed up to a quarter of its 120,000-member workforce. The partially nationalized bank is expected to have reduced the 2013 bonus pool by at least 25 million pounds under a commitment it gave 12 months ago to reduce bonuses in subsequent years. Bonus payments remain a sensitive issue as many Britons still blame banks for the 2008 financial crisis, after which the state was forced to bail out RBS and Lloyds.
