RBS axes 3,500 employees

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to cut 3,500 jobs in response to pressure from the British government to scale back its expansion goals.

As the taxpayer-backed bank is under the British government’s pressure to shrink its investment banking arm, job cuts are to affect employees in Stoke, Manchester, Edinburgh, and London.

The job cuts come as the new revelations about the pay of senior bankers at the RBS have angered the bank’s employees.

On Monday 9 January, the Financial Times revealed that John Hourican received almost 29m shares and options in April 2009 just five months after he took the reins of the RBS’s investment banking arm.

“It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard-working staff,” said David Fleming, Unite national officer.

However, the scaling back of the bank’s investment arm would not mean the end of million pound bonuses as operations such as credit trading, debt underwriting, and structured products would be retained and the most highly paid staff would be left unaffected.

The taxpayer-funded bank’s decision means that huge bonuses would continue to be awarded while moderate pays of ordinary employees would be severely cut.