Investment bank Goldman Sachs has settled its lawsuit with the US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), after agreeing to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges.

Most of the money will go to the SEC in fines, but $100m is heading to RBS, mostly owned by the UK taxpayer.

Wall Street Journal journalist Greg Zuckerman told the Today programme that "both sides can claim some victory" in the case.

The SEC will be happy that they can say they actually won a big case, he explained. But Goldman would also be happy as many in Wall Street were expecting a fine of over $1bn.

"It wasn't quite the fine that they could've had to pay," he said.

While Mr Zuckerman felt a message had been sent to Wall Street, he warned that it probably would not last in the long run.

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