FCA gets final report into RBS small business restructuring division

[LONDON] Britain's finance watchdog has received a long-delayed final report looking into alleged malpractice at Royal Bank of Scotland's small business restructuring division, the regulator said on Wednesday.

The Financial Conduct Authority said on its website it had received the report from Promontory Financial Group and Mazars, the consultancy and the accounting firm charged with investigating RBS's Global Restructuring Group.

Originally announced in 2014 and slated for publication at the end of 2015, the report is set to investigate RBS's culpability over how it treated business customers in difficulty before and during the 2008 financial crisis.

"This has been a complex and lengthy review - it is therefore important that we do not rush the final stages of this process," the FCA said on its website, without giving a date for when it would share the final findings.

RBS has vigorously contested allegations that the GRG unit deliberately pushed small businesses to bankruptcy so it could pick up their assets cheaply.

Reuters previously reported the cost to the bank for settling claims from small firms could run into billions of pounds.

REUTERS