More job cuts expected as RBS seeks £2bn cost savings in CIB division

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has set out plans to cut costs in its corporate and institutional banking (CIB) business by about £2bn over the next three years as part of a wider strategy to reduce the size of the division.

The move is expected to mean further job cuts at the Edinburgh-based bank.

RBS said it expects annual revenues in its CIB business to fall to about £1.4bn after restructuring, down 65 percent from last year.

Costs in the revamped CIB are expected to drop to between £700m and £800m, more than 75 percent less than the £3.6bn in costs recorded last year.

RBS first announced in February that it would begin scaling back on its investment bank business by slashing its assets by 70 percent, axing thousands of jobs and cutting 15 countries it operates in.

“We’re spending too much money doing too many things we don’t need,” Chris Marks, co-head of the CIB division, said today. “We’re confident we can get it down. We have layer-upon-layer of things we don’t need to do given the things we’re creating.”

“What we end up with is a much more focused, much more streamlined, much more efficient business than the one we had before,” he added.

Mr Marks said the costs would focus on people, technology and premises.