Banking: RBS sheds approx 20,000 jobs in UK
UK Bank RBS aims to shrink further: the bank, majority government owned, plans to shed a further 20,000 jobs in the UK.
Figures from the trade union UNITE say that, since the bank was, in effect, nationalised about 20,000 Uk jobs have been lost or are planned for removal soon.
The figures come as the bank announces that it intends to reduce headcount by an additional 3,600 over and above the positions previously announced.
Last month, the bank which handed itself to the Brown government in return for a bundle of life-saving cash, announced a first half profit - it's first for almost three years. But even at GBP1,100 million, it is not enough to bring the bank into any form of balance.
Some of the posts will be offshored - including some to the USA, India and the Far East.
The cuts are in back-office: RBS operates back office in the UK from a dozen sites and two are earmarked for closure.
But the redundancies will not affect those in the 318 branches that, under an order from the European Commission, were last month sold to Santander for a premium of GB P350 million (total price GBP1,600 million, approx). Whilst that appears to be a low figure, it includes only 2 million customers and many branches that are leased. Therefore RBS expects to see an overall costs reduction in addition to the capital payment.
But the deal sees RBS exit the retail banking business in England and Wales and will see the NatWest brand disappear from Scotland. However, the assimilation of the branches - purchase of which takes Santander ahead of HSBC in terms of retail branches in the UK - will take anything up to two years.
Customers of institutions swallowed up by Santander in recent years are often featured in the tabloid media listing complaints about their new provider.
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