David Prosser: Regrets, they've had a few at RBS after all

Outlook He got there in the end. Finally, after months of recriminations and resignations, Sir Tom McKillop, chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, told his shareholders what they have wanted to hear for many months.

He is "profoundly sorry" about the position in which their bank now finds itself, dependent as it is on a bailout from the taxpayer and set to make its first-ever annual loss.

Related articles

• Footsie ends week on five-year low
• Boom and bust pledge was mistake, says Brown
• How India caught the world's cold
• 12% leap in UK home repossessions
• Honda to halt production for two months
• Steve Richards: Dancing on the edge of the economic precipice
• Business backs Brown and Darling
• That's the Christmas shopping done then
• Clothing retailer Mark One put into administration again
• Credit crunch proves no test for papal infallibility
• Market turmoil sends investors fleeing into Treasuries
• Citigroup attempts to reassure on stability
• CBI's Lambert says healthy credit markets key to turnaround
• Hamish McRae: Treasury's dreadful position means a long squeeze on living standards
• Slower-than-expected sales fall offers comfort to high street shops
• RBS investors agree government bailout
• 'Mail' hit by advertising downturn
• Rate of housebuilding has halved in the past year
• Costa lot: Expats forced to tighten their belts
• David Prosser: There is no end in sight for the great retail recession
• David Prosser: The real housing crisis is still ahead of us
• Credit crisis diary: A nasty case of indigestion

Not that Sir Tom was prepared to accept that RBS could have been expected to see this coming. The ABN Amro purchase, for example, might have raised RBS's risk profile, he conceded, but it did not cause the bank's problems. Nor could the devastating events of this autumn ever have been planned for.

The chairman's speech was a graceful one and his apology will no doubt be welcomed by the shareholders and employees to whom it was addressed. Yet Sir Tom also managed to convey the impression he believed the bank's problems were utterly beyond its control, as if it was somehow caught up, through no fault of the executive team, in a financial storm that it itself had played no part in causing.

Sir Fred Goodwin, the bank's chief executive, proffered his own apology at yesterday's annual general meeting – he is "extremely, extremely sorry", which is about as fulsome as anyone has a right to expect. But he, too, has until now all too often appeared to be unable to accept responsibility for RBS's plight.

Still, now the pair are stepping down, to dwell for too long on their roles in RBS's demise – and the extent of their contrition – would be churlish. Sorry is, after all, the hardest word and such a public show of regret cannot be the way in which either Sir Tom or Sir Fred ever dreamed their careers would end.