RBS 'making the right decisions', says Treasury

Royal Bank of Scotland is "making the right decisions" in difficult conditions, the government has said.

Treasury Minister Sajid Javid told BBC News that the bank's pre-tax loss of £5.17bn was part of the necessary steps RBS had to take to become "stronger and safer".

Much of the pre-tax loss came from a £4.6bn accounting charge for changes in the value of its own credit, and from setting aside money to cover PPI mis-selling, the mis-selling of interest rate swaps and its fine for attempting to fix Libor.