The Royal Bank of Scotland’s chief executive has done an impressive job in "bruising" circumstances. But it is right to get a fresh face in to start the bank’s next chapter.

One of the great handicaps of the banking industry in recent years has been the paucity of executives with the experience to manage their institutions through an economic slump. Most senior bankers rose to prominence in the boom years when the prevailing wisdom could best be summed up as: let's just see how big we can possibly get. Then the financial crisis hit, leaving banks run by executives who didn't know how to manage costs or exercise strategic circumspection.