“Ah, Fergus. Excellent work in 2009. You and your fixed-income team have done the Royal Bank proud. Can’t offer you a cash reward, obviously, but think of the 2012 deferral date a bit like the London Olympics – only 1,000 days to go. Meanwhile, we’ve decided to set some stretch targets for 2010. No, no, we don’t want you to go for gold. Or silver, or bronze, actually. Could you aim for fifth? Or sixth to be on the safe side? And could you do the same again next year and the year after? Good man. Next!”

The next career appraisals at the Royal Bank of Scotland debt capital markets division could be pretty fraught. The “behavioural” conditions imposed on RBS’s global banking and markets team were part of the swamp of detail about how the group’s competitive position should be hobbled. They look onerous. For three years, it cannot rank higher than number five in combined global league tables for bond and loan issuance.