RBS CEO says Williams & Glyn IPO remains on track for late 2016

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Bank of Scotland's Chief Executive Ross McEwan said he remained confident that the bank would meet a deadline to spin off its Williams & Glyn business before the end of 2016. RBS was ordered to sell Williams & Glyn, which comprises 314 branches and is focused on lending to small businesses, by European regulators as a condition of its 46 billion pound ($70 billion) government bailout during the 2007-09 financial crisis. However, the sale process has been costly and dogged by setbacks, largely related to technology problems. "This has been one of the most difficult projects of banking in the UK at the moment but we've got 4,000+ staff engaged in taking this business out. We're still confident we will have it ready for IPO late next year," McEwan said. (Reporting by Matt Scuffham, editing by William Hardy)