RBS AXES 500 MORE STAFF
ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) will shed up to 500 jobs from its investment banking arm, it announced to staff yesterday.
City A.M. understands the redundancies – most of which will affect London-based employees – will be in the bank’s backroom departments with its IT and marketing departments likely to be most affected .
Client-facing staff are thought to be safe for the time being.
The news comes less than a month after RBS?announced that up to 3,500 support staff jobs will go from its consumer banking arm. Those jobs losses were described by Unite, which represents staff at the bank as “horrific”. National officer Rob MacGregor said it would be particularly difficult for staff to accept as RBS had decided to move some of the jobs abroad.
At the time he said: “Just three weeks ago staff were boosted to hear of the £1.1bn half year profit yet today thousands of them are told that they have no future at the bank. Unite is appalled that this 84 per cent taxpayer-supported institution has since 2009 – under the banner of a strategic review – cut 21,500 staff.”
Just three months earlier RBS announced redundancies among back-office staff in its wealth management division which includes Coutts, the bankers to the Queen, and Adam & Co. In May it said 2,600 positions would go at its insurance and retail banking arms.
An RBS spokesman said: “We continue to make efficiencies across our business to ensure that we have the right people and resources in place to meet our client needs. We will do all we can to support our staff, offer redeployment opportunities wherever possible and keep compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum.”