working way back to dividend
Britain’s two state-backed banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, are keen to restore dividend payments as quickly as possible to make themselves more attractive to external investors and speed up their route back to privatisation.
Lloyds’ chief executive Antonio Horta-Osario raised the prospect of the bank resuming dividend payments in a conference call with analysts following its first-quarter results earlier this week.
RBS will have paid off £164bn in emergency loans by next week including £36.6bn in emergency liquidity assistance from the Bank of England.
It will also have paid back £52bn lent by the US Federal Reserve and £75bn from the Credit Guarantee Scheme.