IN BRIEF (Page 17)

RBS recovery in sight

Royal Bank of Scotland's recovery is well ahead of plan, its chief executive said yesterday, adding the part-nationalized bank could see political risks increasing ahead of a British election this year.

"We are well ahead of where I thought we would be. We did not slip on as many banana skins as I thought we might," Stephen Hester told a parliamentary hearing on Britain's rescued banks. "That gives me encouragement to believe we can hit all the ambitious targets we put out for the recovery of RBS," he said.