HERE are some take-away notes from meeting Sir Philip Hampton, the new chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland (which has been partially nationalised by the British government).
Sir Philip is emphatic that, despite having to lend another 24 billion pounds on the UK market because of the 25 billion pound bailout, his bank would still be able to support its Asian Pacific operations.
The bank has, however, decided to get out of retail banking and lending to small companies in Singapore. It has put up these operations, along with other non-core businesses in countries such as Vietnam, Pakistan and Philippines up for sale.
The operations employ about 660 people. RBS currently has 2,368 staff in Singapore.
He was also confident that there would be no fourth rescue efforts on the troubled UK bank, even though he anticipated that this would be a very tough year for it.
During his whirlwind tour of Asia, he discovered that staff morale is very high, despite the problems which the bank is encountering back home.
The bank will pay whatever it takes to retain the best and talented, and the UK government understands its position, even though there had been an earlier outcry over bonus payouts.
As one of the biggest banks in the world, he was also sure that customers would stay with it. After all, it accounts for 5 per cent of US dollar transactions and 10 per cent of euros transactions daily.
But he also admitted to spending too much time dealing with issues like former CEO Sir Fred Goodwin's pension and 10 class action suits brought against the bank in the US. Some RBS customers had been unhappy over the Fred Goodwin's issue. But management on the ground is "99.9 per cent committed to their customers".
But pressed on whether the bank has cleared all the minefields on its balance sheet, he was candid enough to say that there is no such thing as a 100 per cent assurance.
He was non-commital about a possible break-up of RBS, noting that it had already reduced businesses significantly in certain areas such as aviation financing.
He would not commit on a time-table for the bank’s turnaround, noting that it might come sometimes in the next five years.
Breaking up banks into separate commercial and investment banking units would not work, given the complexity of the business world.
However, in reply to a jest that it would be nice if Christmas is already here, he did say: "Let's wish it's Christmas 2011".