Natwest will return to fully private ownership in the first half of next year after the taxpayer bailout in 2008.

Natwest will return to fully private ownership in the first half of next year. Chief executive Paul Thwaite said it would be a “symbolic moment” for banking.

He said it would be the “closing of another chapter” for the industry after the lender (then known as Royal Bank of Scotland) became the most visible British victim of the global financial crisis in 2008.

Bailed out by taxpayers, it became 84 percent state-owned, but the stake has been gradually sold off and is now reduced to less than 11 percent.

Thwaite told the Financial Times Global Banking Summit: “I think we are on a very rapid trajectory towards private ownership and I am very proud of that.”

Asked if he would celebrate, he said: “I should probably take a moment right now, but I’m very focused on what we can do with the bank in the future.”

Natwest shares rose 0.3 per cent to 407.7 pence, the highest level since 2011. They are up almost 90 per cent this year and have more than doubled since last autumn.

Thwaite also revealed that the bank would look for “financially compelling” acquisition opportunities as it builds up cash.

It raised questions about how the Government would achieve its growth ambitions amid fears that Labour’s £25bn budget raid on employers’ national insurance would hit jobs and investment and drive up prices.

Thwaite is the bank’s fourth boss since its 2008 bailout. Chairman Rick Haythornthwaite described the period of government ownership as a “sorry story”.

Now, however, the end is in sight, Thwaite confirmed. He said: ‘People can see the pace at which stocks are hitting the market.

‘I think it is reasonable to expect that, in the absence of a major disruption in economic developments, we will return to private ownership next year, perhaps as early as the first half of the year.

‘It will be a great moment, it will be really symbolic for all of us at the bank.

‘I also think it will be a symbolic moment for the sector because it will be another chapter.

“It seems incredible to think about 2008, but it will be another kind of closing of another chapter.”

Meanwhile, Thwaite said that while he was “encouraged” by the Budget measures to boost growth in the coming years, the Government’s National Insurance increase would take its toll in the short term.

He added: ‘Everyone agrees that we need growth.

‘The intention, the objective, is the correct one. I think the path towards it is a little less clear than the intention.’