Around 3,500 jobs, potentially including some in London, will be cut at Royal Bank of Scotland over the next three years under plans to shrink its investment banking arm, the taxpayer-backed lender has said.
In a further blow for banking sector staff, RBS subsidiary Ulster Bank said it would cut 950 jobs in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, while Barclays revealed plans to axe more than 400 posts at its technology and infrastructure division.
The RBS job cuts at Global Banking and Markets (GBM), which has employees in Stoke, Manchester, Edinburgh and London, follows Government pressure for the 83% state-owned bank to pull back from its ambitions to be a global investment player.
Investors backed both banks, as shares in RBS surged more than 5% to near the top of the FTSE 100 Index, while Barclays gained nearly 2%.
But David Fleming, Unite national officer, said RBS's decision to reduce the headcount at GBM was "staggering".
"It is a disgrace that while on a daily basis stories are emerging about the massive bonuses at the top of the bank, increasing numbers of jobs are being cut from amongst the hard-working staff," he said.
GBM, which employs 18,900 worldwide, deals with a range of financial services such as debt advice, equity trading and mergers and acquisitions.
Its range of work with companies and governments spans from refinancing contracts for Anglian Water, Gatwick Airport and Tesco to debt issues for Finland.
The job losses come amid reports that John Hourican, the head of GBM who will continue to oversee the restructuring of the business, is in line to pick up £4 million in long-term incentive shares that he was awarded in 2009. The latest round of job cuts come on top of 2,000 losses announced by the bank last summer. The new losses will mean nearly 11,000 posts have been cut at GBM from the pre-banking crisis headcount of 24,000.
A spokesman for the bank said: "We need to make essential changes to our technology and infrastructure division so that we can innovate in new technologies and services for our customers, and be as effective and efficient as possible."
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