Sir Fred Goodwin is hardly beloved of the British public. But imagine just for a second how we would feel if the former RBS boss had been dishing out loans of £1bn plus to himself, his mates and their companies. People might want to chop off more than his pension.

Now picture a fictional scenario where there were senior staff at RBS, with very little prior experience in banking, who had been throwing around interest-free loans to related parties to buy shares in the bank itself that were written off when it collapsed. What if the Government was unable to bail it out, triggering defaults that spanned across the globe? Then there might be rumours swirling round about HBOS, Bradford and Bingley and Northern Rock, sparking fears that the whole British banking system was based on hot air and money plucked out of nowhere.  Rowena  Mason Blog - Telegraph Blogs - 18-Aug-09.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/rowenamason/100000616/fsa-needs-a-shred-more-than-hand-wringing-over-icelands-banking-implosion/