Exclusive: RBS Faces £300m Hit

Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) (RBS) will on Friday outline a financial hit of about £300m from its role in the industry's spate of mis-selling scandals and the IT meltdown which left millions of customers unable to access their money.

I have learned that RBS will say in its half-year results that it is increasing its provision for compensating customers who bought payment protection insurance (PPI) from the bank by about £130m.

That increase will take the total impact of the scandal to date for the state-backed lender to close to £1.2bn.

Unlike some rivals, however, RBS will not make a significant provision for compensating the victims of interest rate swaps mis-selling.

Bankers tell me that RBS will set aside just under £50m for that, versus a much larger sum of £450m announced last week by Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) .

Insiders said that the discrepancy - given that RBS also had a big share of that market - was due to differences in the way the banks were deciding to account for the potential cost of providing redress to customers.

The more interesting figure in RBS' numbers will relate to the cost of its IT meltdown in June. I'm told that the bank, which is 82% owned by the taxpayer, will say it is setting aside about £125m to compensate customers and improve its IT systems.

The Financial Times has reported that Cabinet ministers are discussing the possibility of fully nationalising RBS. Insiders dismissed the prospect of such an event taking place.

RBS declined to comment.