Banking carry on sees RBS branch sell-off back on after seven years

Interested parties form queue after bank's 1.5bn attempt to form separate entity and float on stock market stalls

What a carry on. Half a decade ago, Santander was set to buy the 307 branches that Royal Bank of Scotland must sell to comply with the EU-imposed terms of its taxpayer-funded 2008 bailout. By 2012, the Spanish bank thought the process was taking too long and pulled out.

The following year, RBS cooked up a complicated plan to bring in private equity partners, plus an investment wing of the Church of England, to speed up the branches' progress towards a stock market flotation. The chancellor, George Osborne, spoke fondly of how this new "challenger" bank, to be rebadged as Williams & Glyn, would give a leg-up to competition and diversity in UK banking.