THE scraps of detail emerging regarding the alleged abuse of smaller firms at the hands of the RBS Global Restructuring Group (GRG) division ( “RBS in the dock over scale of ‘abuse’ on small firms”, The Herald, February 7) underline that it is high time that as much information as possible about this dark episode is put into the public domain. Specifically, Promontory’s GRG report, commissioned more than three years ago, should be published in full as soon as possible.

Only through fully understanding the scale and nature of the activity of the Edinburgh-headquartered bank can appropriate action be taken to prevent similar practice in future. Ten years on, we need to see action from the Financial Conduct Authority to protect smaller enterprises from the might of the big banks – in our view, their proposed safeguards currently fall well short of the mark.

Scotland’s reputation for business may have been tainted during the financial crisis, but we’re not going to repair it by sweeping allegations like these under the carpet. Those small business owners whose livelihoods were threatened or ruined deserve – at the very least – the whole truth.

Andy Willox,

Scottish policy convenor,

Federation of Small Businesses (FSB),

74 Berkeley Street, Glasgow.

THE RBS announcement of a “use it or lose it” exercise for 10 Scottish branches is nothing more than a PR stunt (“a stay of execution is welcome but RBS must listen”, The Herald, February 7).

The bank knows perfectly well that the potential for a local branch in a small, remote community to increase business is severely limited.

At the end of the year it will still close these banks, using a new set of statistics to justify its actions, and claim that it did its best to keep them open.

Stuart Neville,

23 Lilac Avenue, Clydebank.

THOM Cross writes a very thought-provoking piece (Letters, February 7) explaining the various economic theories in practice around the world along with their inevitable frailties, some worse than others like socialism in Venezuela or corruption in Brazil and so on.

So far so good, but then he digresses and suggests a more pragmatic approach may be the answer displayed (in his opinion) by Nicola Sturgeon. If only this were true; but unfortunately everything she does is driven by measures that must support her childhood dream for independence and not by economic prudence and sustainability, otherwise why do we run the worst fiscal deficit of all the OECD countries?

However, he ends by asking how we should deal with the perceived evils of feeding shareholders' greed which in his view are the real culprits. Here again I would disagree with him, as the old adage is still true today that risk must be related to reward and the time-tested rule of thumb still applies: roughly three, four and seven per cent for bank deposits, bonds and returns on shares over time. In this regard the problem is not so much the shareholders in my view but a few greedy executives whose earnings are frankly ridiculous (either by pay or artificially boosting the share price with dividends) and bear no resemblance to those who work for the company in question and should be curtailed by either the shareholders themselves or government legislation. Having said that the real challenges going forward for democracies lined to market forces is how to combat strong multilateral trade agreements (at the expense of developing countries), globalisation, the gig economy and how to curb large multinational companies use of tax havens making it very difficult for legitimate companies to compete on a level playing field.

Ian Lakin,

Pinelands, Murtle Den Road, Milltimber, Aberdeen.

DAVID J Crawford (Letters, February 7) points directly at the root cause of the financial mess Britain and the world is in. – that is, the monopoly held by privately-owned banks to create money out of nothing through fractional reserve banking. As far back as 1924, Reginald McKenna, chairman of the board of the Midland Bank and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, told its stockholders: “I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create money … And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” Professor Antony Sutton later revealed how the central banks have the power to create money from thin air: “This money is fiction, created out of nothing … In brief, this private group of bankers has a money machine monopoly. This monopoly is uncontrolled by anyone and is guaranteed profit.”

In 1966, Professor Carroll Quigley, one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of American academics, revealed in his majestic tome Tragedy and Hope that the powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. The system would be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system is the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which are themselves private corporations. Each central bank is able to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. In each country the power of the central bank rests largely on its control of the credit and money supply.

This is the reality today, the elephant in the room that international bankers and the British Establishment do not want us discussing. Until the issuing power of money is taken from the banks and restored to government and we the people to whom it belongs, democracy is a sham. The banking institutions are, in the words of Thomas Jefferson “more dangerous to liberty than standing armies”.

Dr Jim Macgregor,

Lawhill Cottage, Dollar.