NatWest hands out £500m bonus pot after shedding shackles of state ownership

NatWest Group will disclose on Friday that it awarded bonuses of nearly £500m last year, as it returned to full private ownership 17 years after it was rescued by taxpayers.

Sky News has learnt that the high street lender will say alongside its annual results that its bonus pool for 2025 was just over £490m, an increase of about 10% on the previous year's figure. Money latest: Chain crowned nation's favourite supermarket for fifth time The rise will be broadly in line with the hikes awarded by rival UK banks such as Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, and comes as NatWest's shares trade at levels rarely seen in close to two decades.

Earlier this week, NatWest confirmed that it was buying Evelyn Partners, the wealth manager, for £2.7bn, its biggest corporate acquisition since Royal Bank of Scotland, as it was known then, was bailed out with a £45.5bn equity injection in 2008. The lender, which at one point was more than 80% state-owned, returned to full private sector ownership last May, ending a tumultuous period in its history.

In the years immediately following its bailout, RBS's bonus decisions were intensely scrutinised in Westminster, prompting heated discussions between the bank's management and its government shareholder. Those tensions have been defused in recent years by the gradual return to majority private ownership and broadly shrinking overall bonus numbers.

The 2025 bonus pot of close to £500m will reflect its improved financial trajectory during the year, with performance targets having been upgraded as recently as October. Unlike Barclays and HSBC, NatWest no longer operates a sizeable investment bank, meaning its annual bonus pools are significantly smaller than those of rivals.

Lloyds, which handed out bonuses of about £400m last year, is also expected to publish its annual report on Friday, setting out details of a revamped remuneration policy. NatWest and Lloyds both declined to comment..