The Royal Bank of Scotland Plc was handed the fines by the Financial Services Authority as the company failed to adequately screen customers and payments to prevent its banks from being used for money laundering or financing terrorists.

The Financial Services Authority placed the fine on the firm in order to use its power against financial crimes. It has come out that the banking service might have provided financial services to people who are on the HM Treasury sanctions list which is against the laws. The situation could have been prevented if the individuals were adequately screened as required by the regulations.

The fines were reduced for the Royal Bank of Scotland plc admitted that it failed to take adequate measures in order to prevent a security issue. It is quite possible that many transactions took place through RBS in order to finance terrorist activities in the United Kingdom.

Share prices of Royal Bank of Scotland plc (NYSE:RBS) went up significantly as news regarding HSBC which is a major banking firm in the United Kingdom reported that its profit had doubled for the first half of the year 2010 compared to the previous year.

Share prices of the Royal Bank of Scotland have been on a rise as financial companies including UBS and Deutsche Bank reported profits and beat analysts expectations.

The rise in the stock prices of Royal Bank of Scotland is also being attributed to the company selling its branches in the United Kingdom to Banco Santander. It is expected that the deal between the two firms will be inked during this week.

As Santander CEO announced that the financial firm was expecting to complete its sale of RBS Branches in the United Kingdom, the share prices of Royal Bank of Scotland plc rose up. The Bank was reportedly the only bank that had bid for the RBS Branches and the deal is reportedly worth around £1.8 Billion. Previously the deal was expected to be around £2 Billion.

Recently RBS has been in a bid to change its financial portfolio after the European Union ordered that the bank needs to cut its market share so that it is not at a competitive advantage to other banks.

Apart from the takeover bid in the United Kingdom, the banking major is also selling its assets in Pakistan to Faysal Bank. The deal has recently got the approval of Pakistan’s Central Bank.

The deal might not fit well with the employees of Royal Bank of Scotland since everytime takeovers happen, many employees of companies are fired. It is yet to be seen on what terms the sale takes place.

Despite strong performance by the Banking major, stocks of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (NYSE:RBS) weakened a bit. The decline in the stock prices of the Royal Bank of Scotland might have to do something with news regarding the recent takeover bid by Pakistan’s Faysal Bank (KAR:FABL) to takeover Royal Bank of Scotland’s Pakistan Operations.

Pakistan’s Faysal Bank won the bid to takeover the Royal Bank of Scotland’s local operations in Pakistan and allows Pakistan’s lending company Faysal to expand its retail presence in the area. The purchase of RBS assets in Pakistan means that Faysal will be doubling up its branch base and will be able to grow its business in Pakistan.

The recent takeover bid for RBS local branches in Pakistan has recently got its approval from the Pakistan Central Bank. RBS is in a move to ramp up its business by selling up non-core operations and has recently hired bankers to boost its Asian Equities business.

As European financial firms UBS and Deutsche Bank announced their quarterly earnings for the second quarter of the year 2010, share prices of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (NYSE:RBS) went up. Stocks of the Royal Bank of Scotland had also shown decent gains after the ONS report estimated that the country’s economy had grown more than what had been expected by analysts.

Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS) were also up at the London Stock Exchange (LON:RBS) and were heavily boosted by the report regarding the gains in net profits of European banking firms.

The rise in the stock prices of the European Banking Firm RBS is also being attributed to the announcement of the company passing the bank stress test results. As per the stress test results, none of the british banking companies have failed the stress tests.  Some analysts have put that the stress tests were not strict enough but the news of the british banking firms passing the tests has been an overall good news.

Share Prices of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (NYSE:RBS) made significant gains in the previous week after a report published by the Office for National Stastics for the second quarter showed growth in the GDP of the country.

According to the report by Office for National Stastics it has been estimated that the GDP growth for the second quarter was around 1.1 percent which is higher than what the analysts had expected. The report claims that there has been growth in the service, distribution, hotel, restaurant, transport, business, finance, construction, electricity, agriculture, gas, water, forestry, fishing, manufacturing and government sectors. Only transport, storage and communication sectors had a decrease compared to the previous quarter of the year.

The UK economy had a slump in the year 2009 and the government was criticised on how it was handling the budget.

The report comes as a relief to the people who had been expecting the economy to get back on track.