Latest RBS job cuts bring total to 1600 for the month

Under its chief executive, Ross McEwan, RBS has been shrinking the bank’s transaction management and operations division to focus on its personal and small business operations in the UK and Ireland.

The latest cuts bring to 1,600 the total job losses announced by RBS over the past month.

The Edinburgh-based 73 per cent-taxpayer owned, bailed-out lender said the posts are in the middle and back office functions.

About 300 jobs will go offshore, to an existing RBS operation based in Gurgaon, near Delhi, and Chennai in southern India. London and Newcastle-under-Lyme will bear the brunt of the cuts, along with Manchester. The layoffs will happen by the end of next year.

The news follows Monday’s announcement when RBS said it was cutting 550 jobs and replacing some face to face advisers with an automated system.

RBS previously said it would look to cut costs in the corporate and institutional bank after Mr McEwan took over as chief executive. He set out his strategy in February 2014.

A bank spokesman said: “As part of RBS’s drive to be a stronger, simpler and fairer bank, we have been restructuring our corporate and institutional bank, as well as reducing its size, to focus on our core customers and products.

“As this process continues our frontline staff need a simpler, clearer, more efficient relationship with our middle and back office functions to better serve customers, so we’re reshaping our services business accordingly.

“Unfortunately the changes will result in some job losses.”