Friday 29 Mar 2024
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SAN FRANCISCO (March 4): Royal Bank of Scotland Group may cut as many as 14,000 investment-banking jobs, or more than two thirds of the workforce, as part of a plan to focus on the UK consumer market, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

The bank hasn’t finalized the plans, said the person who asked not to be named because the details are private.

The Edinburgh-based firm’s corporate and institutional bank, housing most of the securities activities, employs 16,000 to 18,000 people, out of a workforce of more than 108,000.

RBS Chief Executive Officer Ross McEwan on Feb 26 declined to comment on job cuts at the investment bank, saying the bank may eliminate a “significant” number of positions, as the lender reported a full-year loss.

As part of his overhaul, the CEO plans to cut the number of countries in which the securities unit operates by two-thirds and shrink its US operations.

The Financial Times reported the 14,000 job cuts earlier.

As part of its restructuring, RBS plans to cut risk-weighted assets at the investment bank from 107 billion pounds to about 35 billion pounds to 40 billion pounds in 2019.

The unit, headed by Rory Cullinan, reported a wider fourth-quarter operating loss, partly because of restructuring costs.

At the US trading division, the bank plans to eliminate more than 1,000 jobs, Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson said.

The unit employs about 2,000 people, with most of the operations in Stamford, Connecticut, he told reporters.

RBS, the UK’s largest government owned lender, plans to focus on clients in its home market and western Europe, with support from trading hubs in Britain, the US and Singapore.

It will keep some back office operations in Poland and India, as well as a sales team in Japan, it said last week.

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