Bankers' Bonuses

I'm clearly missing something.  The UK banks have enormous loans granted to them by the Bank of England when the credit markets dried up, with the BoE requiring repayment by end 2012.  Without those loans those banks would have gone bust.

The banks with the largest loans are Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.  So the BoE, 100% owned by the taxpayer, is lending to banks partially owned by the taxpayer.

Yet RBS and Lloyds TSB will be paying £100k+ bonuses to certain staff.  So why are they not, instead, paying off their loans first?

I'm all for bankers, or anybody else, getting rewarded for their efforts but does that reward not come after settling the debts owed to taxpayers?