It had to be tamed from an out of control £2 trillion toxic monster, which posed a risk to the entire country's financial stability, to something far less dangerous and more manageable. It's down to something like £1.3 trillion (the funded balance sheet will be less than £1 trillion for the first time).
RBS is the incredible shrinking bank as demanded by both government and shareholders - one and the same after 2008. Hester has probably over-achieved on cleaning the bank up and progressing toward a return to profit. The worse than expected economic environment in which this has been done provides broader context for Hester's achievement.
RBS has, in fact, been leading the pack and is a sign of things to come for many other banks, particularly in Europe, but also in the US.
The re-engineering of banks as big as RBS will be repeated across many countries as the great deleveraging and regulatory squeeze increases costs, reduces returns and decreases lending capacity. Investment banks will be shut or sold and retail banks returned to a vanilla status.
RBS is the emergence of boring banking out of chaos, a development deserving of a bonus for the man leading that unprecedented transformation.
Twitter @damianreece
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