More RBS job loses “inevitable”, says CFO Stevenson

Ewen Stevenson, chief financial officer of Royal Bank of Scotland, has said that it is “inevitable” the still 73 per cent state-owned lender will slash more jobs in the coming years.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Mr Stevenson said future cuts would aim to slim down head office functions, as well as legacy data centres.

However, he could not be drawn on the exact size of the redundancies expected.

Job losses have already been felt across the group as a result of extensive branch closures.

In December, bosses at the Edinburgh-based lender made the controversial decision to close one in every four branches.

In its annual report, published last week, the bank said the remaining branches “will remain key outlets” focused on major financial advice around major decisions like mortgages and starting a business, rather than the “routine transactional banking”.

On the politically sensitive issue of future closures, Mr Stevenson said the bank’s leadership is “very comfortable with the shape of the branch network”, and intend to give six months’ notice before closing any further locations.

Mr Stevenson’s comments come just one week after RBS announced its first annual profit in 10 years, although it still has the prospect of a massive fine in the billions of dollars from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) hanging over its head.

Mr Stevenson said the fine remains the major impediment to the bank paying a dividend, but added RBS’s capital ratio reflects an ability to deal with a larger hit than the £3.1bn currently provided for by the bank.

The fine relates to the misselling of retail mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).

Mr Stevenson said: “We’ve got no update on timing. We’d like to get it settled.

“We need to get RMBS resolved with the DoJ. Once that’s resolved we can very quickly get back into a discussion on dividends.”

On the subject of Brexit, Mr Stevenson said the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland remains “important” as its subsidiary, Ulster Bank, has significant operations on both sides of the border.

He added that the bank is undertaking “sensible contingency plans” with regard to Brexit.