Royal Bank Of Scotland CEO Turns Down Bonus

Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester will not be accepting a 1 million pound ($1.5 million) bonus that drew criticism from British public and politicians, the bank said Sunday.

Spokesman David Gaffney said Hester would not receive the bonus of 3.6 million shares he was awarded last week by the board of the largely state-owned bank.

The British government owns an 82 percent stake, and politicians had criticized the reward at a time when Britons face painful spending cuts and tax hikes.

The government which has insisted it has no control over the bank's bonuses welcomed the announcement.

"This is a sensible and welcome decision that enables Stephen Hester to focus on the very important job he has got to do, namely to get back billions of pounds of taxpayers' money that was put into RBS," Treasury chief George Osborne said.

The board of directors decided last week to award Hester a bonus of 3.6 million shares – worth just under 1 million pounds at Friday's closing share price of 27.74 pence. That came on top of his annual salary of 1.2 million pounds.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that Hester's bonus was "a matter for him," but pointed out it was much less than last year's.