RBS refutes 15,000 figure but more jobs will go

Royal Bank of Scotland has moved to play down reports that it is set slash a massive 15,000 jobs in its latest bid to cut costs and finally return to profit.

The Edinburgh-based lender, which has lost more than £50 billion since its £45 government bailout at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, has stated that more jobs will go as part of its new £800 million savings drive,

However a spokesman said “we do not recognise” the 15,000 job cuts figure which emerged over the weekend following a report stating the figure in the Sunday Times newspaper.

The troubled bank is expected to report losses of £2.3 billion for 2016 when it publishes its financial results later this month, its ninth consecutive year in the red.

While the latest figures will inevitably see RBS continue its strategy of slimming down, the spokesman declined to put an exact figure on expected job cuts.

However, the still 73 per cent taxpayer-owned lender is expected to achieve much of the cost reductions through significant number s of redundancies

RBS chief executive Ross McEwan has already implemented £3 billion of cuts.

Over the past 3 years he has overseen a regime focused on the domestic UK market that has already pulled back from many international operations and cut down its investment bank, slashing the number of employees from a peak of 226,400 in 2007 to just 82,500 late last year.

Having cut around 10,000 staff in 2016, a further 15,000 within the next 12 months could prove problematic.