Royal Bank of Scotland faces a fine of tens of millions of pounds as early as this week over the collapse of its IT systems that locked millions of consumers out of their accounts for days.

The bank, which is 81Percent-taxpayer owned, is supported for a penalty from the Financial Conduct Authority for the extraordinary systems meltdown in 2012, which also impacted consumers of its NatWest & Ulster Bank brands.

The charge will be a more blow to RBS's reputation, which took a renewed battering last week over the bank's involvement in manipulating the £3.5tn-a-day currency markets. RBS paid £400m to the FCA & a United States regulator over a failure of interior controls which allowed traders to act together to move currency prices for profit. It was among 6 banks which were fined £2.6 bn by regulators.

The scale of the penalty for IT failings will be much less but will certainly revive memories of the chaos caused by the IT outage & leave RBS open to allegations of inexperience. 

Ireland's central bank recently fined RBS £2.7 m for the fiasco, which hit Ulster Bank particularly hard, leaving some consumers without banking services for almost a month.

Neither Royal Bank of Scotland neither the FCA would comment on the current potential fine, but the bank said last month that the regulatory authority had started 'Enforcement Proceedings' in regard to its investigation, which started in April 2013.

In 2012, RBS deposited £175m to compensate customers and also has not quantified the fine it expects to receive from the FCA.