UK ex-bank chiefs face grilling as backlash builds

* UK Treasury Committee to quiz former bankers Tues 0945 GMT

* Ex-RBS CEO Goodwin at centre of grilling

* Ex-RBS chairman, former HBOS CEO, chairman also quizzed

LONDON, Feb 10 - Four British bankers who held top roles at Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS as they neared the brink of collapse will be grilled by politicians on their mistakes as a backlash against the industry builds.

Fred Goodwin, the former RBS chief executive, will be centre stage when the Treasury Select Committee holds its latest probe on the banking crisis on Tuesday.

The cross-party committee is expected to quiz Goodwin and the other ousted officials on whether RBS and HBOS would have stayed in business if the government had not rescued them in October and whether the regulators or government could have done more to avert the crisis.

Goodwin's response could yield some fireworks -- he was reported to have complained that October's rescue plan was "less of a negotiation, more of a drive-by shooting".

The meetings will face close public scrutiny, as banks are under increasing pressure to overhaul pay structures, echoing calls for change in the United States and in Europe.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday pledged to end rewards for failure in a financial system crippled by the credit crisis, though he stopped short of halting bonus payments at part-nationalised banks.

At the root of the backlash is the perception that bankers caused the financial malaise by taking excessive risks, and that they should not get any lavish rewards after the government had to spend 37 billion pounds ($55 billion) of taxpayers money to bail out RBS and HBOS.

Lawmakers might well ask the bankers to consider repaying past bonuses. Goodwin waived any pay-off when he left, but still received a 2.9 million pound payout in 2007, the year he led RBS's ill-fated acquisition of ABN AMRO.

Goodwin, a steely Scot who led RBS for nine years, will be flanked by his former chairman Tom McKillop, who stepped down from RBS last week, three months before his planned departure.

McKillop has been widely criticised for not restraining Goodwin's appetite for deals and is likely to be asked if scrapping the ABN deal was ever an option, and if institutions ever called for Goodwin to be replaced -- as top investor Legal & General has said it did.

Also facing the panel is Andy Hornby, who was chief executive of HBOS until it was taken over by Lloyds in a government-brokered rescue.

Dennis Stevenson, chairman of HBOS from 2001 until the Lloyds deal completed in January, is the fourth member to face the politicians.

RBS's new chief executive, his counterparts at Barclays and Lloyds and the UK heads of HSBC and Santander will be quizzed by the Treasury committee on Wednesday. ($1=.6722 Pound)