Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the owner of Ulster Bank, has today announced pre-tax losses of £24.1 billion for 2008 - a new UK record.
It was expected that losses at the parent of the Ulster Bank Group would reach £28 billion.
RBS also intends to place £325 billion in toxic assets in a taxpayer-backed protection scheme, the bank said today.
Part-nationalised RBS will use the Government’s newly-created Asset Protection Scheme to strengthen its finances. RBS will pay £6.5 billion to the Treasury to take part in the scheme and be liable for the first £19.5 billion in losses on the assets.
Chief executive Stephen Hester said: “Participation in this scheme would assist us in reducing risk for shareholders whilst providing greater support for UK customers via increased lending.
“It would provide increased certainty to the market by limiting potential losses on a significant proportion of our balance sheet.”
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said: “These historic and humiliating losses bring into sharp focus just how reckless RBS’s former management team have behaved.
“The whole country is paying the price through job cuts and repossessions on a massive scale. It is time to take control and fully nationalise this bank.
“You cannot have a state bailout on one hand while allowing the spectre of thousands of job losses to loom over staff on the other.
“The Government has set a precedent for intervention in the day-to-day running of RBS. They must now intervene to protect the workers in call centres, branches and back offices who are the victims of the credit crunch, not the culprits.
“The staff at this bank should not have to pay with their jobs. We will vigorously oppose any compulsory redundancies.”
Mr Simpson said the union “was extremely frustrated” about the lack of any firm details about jobs, adding: “The uncertainty hanging over the heads of these workers is unacceptable.”
PA