Green Party finance speaker, Dr Molly Scott Cato MEP, has repeated a call for a network of public banks in response to news that RBS is struggling to sell part of its branch network [1]. RBS is 73% owned by the UK taxpayer and has been instructed to sell the branches by the EU as a penalty for its 2008 taxpayer rescue. A deal with Santander, which originally agreed to buy the banks, has collapsed and RBS have until 2017 to meet an EU state aid deadline. Dr Scott Cato said:
“A Green Chancellor would not squander a valuable national asset in what is shaping up to be a desperate fire sale. Many small businesses are on their knees because banks are prioritising speculative activity rather than investment in real enterprises. The Green Party's policy of creating a network of public banks would prioritise social and environmental needs above shareholder profits. RBS branches offer a perfect opportunity to create a network of regional banks similar to those in Germany that underpin their country's impressive economic success.
“Rather than wasting the huge public investment the government was forced to make during the financial crisis, we should ensure that this money is invested in providing us with a secure banking system that works for the real economy.”
The Green Party has been calling for publicly owned bank RBS to be broken up into a network of community banks since late 2013 [2]
[1] https://greens.scot/news/scottish-government-should-turn-rbs-into-network-of-local-banks