Taxpayers were previously bit-part players in Britain’s banking industry but yesterday, we joined the big league.

The injection of up to £37 billion may yet give us a 63 per cent stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland and a 43.5 per cent stake in the enormous business that results from the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS.

However, these banks are more than the bricks and mortar of high street branches and head offices. Courtesy of the myriad of investments made by RBS, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, we now find ourselves sitting atop a property empire that would make Donald Trump proud.

Alongside the hotels and offices, there are seats and corporate boxes for the Six Nations rugby matches and certain rights over Andy Murray.

The Royal Bank of Scotland comes, first and foremost, with a splendid new £350 million complex, located on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

It is conveniently close to the airport and lays on a bus service from the centre of town. Amid the 100-acre estate, landscaped under the supervision of the outgoing chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin, there is a 300-seat, tiered auditorium and a television studio. The estate includes Gogarburn House, a stately 19th century building with a restaurant. The old stable block has a gym, a 20m swimming pool, a spa pool, sauna and steam room, hitherto open to the public and now perhaps owned by the public.

RBS also owns the newly refurbished Grosvenor House Hotel, the five-star pile In Park Lane. Surely it might drop its room rates from £320 for this evening, for one of its owners, a member of the great British taxpaying public?

Another bewildering luxury hotel and property portfolio awaits at the newly merged Lloyds TSB and HBOS bank. There is half of the Savoy – the other half belongs to the Saudi billion-aire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, operated by a Canadian company.

There is also Rocco Forte group, bankrolled by HBOS, which operates 11 luxury hotels in destinations as far flung as St Petersberg and Abu Dhabi. HBOS also own 55 per cent of Invista Real Estate Management, which has nearly £10 billion of property.

With our fingers in quite so many pies, we may start to wonder whether there are any perks for us as high-rolling masters of high finance.

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