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RBS Moderator: Sir Fred Goodwin 2Nd November 2005

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RBS Moderator: Sir Fred Goodwin 2Nd November 2005 RBS 2nd November 2005 Confirmation: 5783433 Page 1 RBS Moderator: Sir Fred Goodwin 2nd November 2005 © The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc 2005. All Rights Reserved Copyright in the whole and every part of this document belongs to The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (the "Owner"). The document may not be used, sold, licensed, transferred, copied or reproduced in whole or in part in any manner or form or by any means (including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system) to any person without the prior written consent of the Owner. The information contained in this document is believed to be accurate at the time of despatch to the recipient, but no representation or warranty is given (expressed or implied) as to its accuracy, completeness or correctness. Whilst every care has been taken in developing and compiling this information, the Owner accepts no liability for any loss or damage caused, arising directly or indirectly, in connection with reliance on its contents except to the extent that such liability may not lawfully be excluded. This document does not constitute a Minute of the proceedings of the Annual General Meeting for the purposes of the Companies Act 1985, the Articles of Association of the Owner, or for any other purpose. Sir Fred Goodwin: Thanks JP and morning everyone. It scarcely seems like a year since this conference when I last appeared before you, and I was struck this morning with a great sense of déjà vu, as I came into the building and into the room, everything seemed uncannily familiar. Something though which has changed a little bit is the conference theme. As someone who has fairly religiously tried to stick to the conference theme each year and found it progressively harder and harder work as it became sort of more and more doom-laden as we seem to go through the early part of the millennium, it’s pleasing to note at last that we’ve moved onto a topic which seems slightly more open and less prescriptive. At least that’s how it seemed when the invitation landed on my desk, I duly accepted and put it on the to-do list for a bit nearer the time. It was only really as I came round to start putting some thoughts together on strategy 2010 that I saw one or two of the more obvious challenges which it presents. Firstly and foremost, five years feels kind of too far ahead to look, because strategy isn’t something, at least from our point of view strategy isn’t something that we send people called strategists in to a darkened room in an exotic location to spend a week or however long it takes locked in to come up with. Strategy is a living part of what we do in the business, and it becomes, in its purest it becomes quite operational and quite focused and quite detailed, so RBS 2nd November 2005 Confirmation: 5783433 Page 2 trying to think out as to what 2010 might be seemed quite a tall order for us. It is too far ahead to be thinking about budget, it’s too far ahead to be thinking about physically what the market might be doing. It’s too far ahead to be thinking about what economic growth might be doing in any of the individual economies in which we’re represented. Clearly too far ahead to be producing anything approximating to a detailed business plan. And so really the only thing that struck me we could talk about sensibly in relation to 2010 would be strategic direction. And that, you’ll not be surprised to learn is the thrust this morning. In thinking about strategic direction, it’s helpful just to start off with one or two obvious remarks. It is clearly much less precise than strategy. It is directional, it’s not so prescriptive from our point of view as to what will happen in 2010 verses 2009 verses 2011 verses 2008. It is directional and less precise. It clearly is conditioned by data; how our business is performing, what’s happening in the world, and of course by experience as to what works, what doesn’t work, what is working, what won’t work. Conditioned by the operating environment, it’s all very well us having a strategy but clearly there are other people out there who have strategies and what we do will be influenced and affected by those. And it’s clearly more than anything else conditioned by the position and capability of the organisation, or perhaps more precisely, where we start form. We all begin the strategic journey from a place, and so in considering our strategic direction for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, where we are today is an important ingredient and contributor to that strategic direction. I put it to you that where we are today is not somewhere we’ve arrived at by accident, it is in fact somewhere we’ve arrived at by virtue of having had a strategic direction, certainly over the last five years and indeed before that, but just to give a sense of why we’ve come to be where we are today, I want to go back briefly to the last five years and just give a sense of some of the things we’ve been trying to do because they do very much condition what we are planning to do in the strategic direction through to 2010 and indeed beyond. RBS 2nd November 2005 Confirmation: 5783433 Page 3 In the year 2000, everything seemed so simple then, we had just taken over NatWest, we were up to our neck, indeed, some thought well over our head in ‘opportunities’ and ‘challenges’. The priorities were simple, it required no thought whatsoever to identify that we had to go and deliver the transaction benefits which we’d promised to everyone, we had to keep the show on the road at the same time and deliver underlying income growth, and improving efficiency wouldn’t be a bad idea either. Ancient history so I’m not going to dwell on this but yes we did deliver the NatWest benefits, yes we did deliver underlying income growth during the period, 60% of our income growth was organic, just under £7 billion, so the second of the objectives was met, and of course not unconnected with the two things as well, the cost income ratio improved pretty dramatically. But even back in 2000 we had identified some other issues with the group. Integrating NatWest successfully was clearly mission critical but it wasn’t enough. Had we done that, and only done that we’d have ended up with a group which had somewhere in the order of 85% of its income coming from the United Kingdom. That felt like too much dependency on a single economy. Our income mix was 50/50 roughly net interest income and non-interest income, that felt like making margins a bigger issue than would have been ideal going forward. As we looked into individual businesses or individual areas of weakness in our platform, yes we had lots of strengths but there were some quite clearly identifiable issues and weaknesses. We were much stronger in corporate banking than we were in financial markets. We were much stronger in CBFM UK than we were outside. Direct Line, strong in motor but weak in home, Ulster Bank very strong in the north of Ireland, not so strong in the south. Wealth, strong in the UK not so strong outside, that’s the theme again, Retail Direct, strong in the UK but not strong outside. Citizens, very strong in New England, but we’re reaching a place, we thought, one with diminishing returns in New England, need to expand outside it. In the ensuing period we regaled you from year to year with the famous ticks and crosses chart, so we tried to turn those gaps as we saw them into strategic priorities and give you a sense of what we were going to do and why we’re going to do it and how we’re going to do it and we’ve had much fun over the years with all of the ticks, when did something move from being one tick to RBS 2nd November 2005 Confirmation: 5783433 Page 4 two ticks, when did it move to being a cross and so forth, and I think we’ve mapped out a journey for you over the period as to how we got from 2000 through to 2005, and how we addressed all of those issues. In Corporate Banking and Financial Markets, many of you would have seen the presentation we made yesterday, a particular focus in Corporate Banking and Financial Markets, we engaged in a sequential, if you like, organic development product by product to build out the platform. We did it by making significant investments in our business but at the same time maintaining a stable cost income ratio. We delivered stable income progression, stable contribution progressions while making those investments in our business. We’ve maintained a very conservative risk appetite in that business. And we’ve now got ourselves, we’ve truly I think transformed our financial markets business and have got ourselves to a place where we are top ten in all of the activities that we take part in around the world. For example in currencies, those of you who weren’t at the presentation yesterday we’d commend the website to you where there is considerably more detail and financial information around the progress of Corporate Banking and Financial Markets so I’ll just take out one or two of the highlights here.
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