Are women about to take the helm at top of RBS?

WOMEN could soon hold the two most powerful jobs at Royal Bank of Scotland. The state-backed bank said Katie Murray will become interim chief financial officer in October when Ewen Stevenson leaves for HSBC. Murray, 49, will become the first female finance chief at a major UK lender when she takes over from Stevenson, her current boss. It is also thought chief executive Ross McEwan will announce his departure in the coming months having returned the bank to profit and resumed dividend payments. The internal favourite is Alison Rose, head of commercial and private banking at RBS. A woman has never been chief executive of the FTSE 100 bank – meaning RBS could break new ground there too. The news comes after the US Department of Justice published damning documents detailing the attitudes of RBS bankers before the financial crisis. The documents showed bankers at RBS admitted they were selling ‘total f****** garbage’ to investors. The US authorities also revealed employees made light of destroying the housing market in the lead-up to the financial crash.