RBS plans £30bn cuts to investment business

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is planning to reduce the size of its investment bank by up to £30 billion and cut hundreds more jobs, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

Through asset sales it is expected to reduce the size of the investment bank’s balance sheet by between £20 billion and £30 billion, or up to 10% of its total assets, according to the paper.

It said RBS would also transfer billions of pounds of capital support from the division to other areas of its business such as UK retail and commercial banking.

Job cuts are expected to be made in the investment bank’s administration and IT support division.

RBS has already cut its investment banking balance sheet from £500 billion in 2008 to £300 billion, and axed 5,000 jobs, bringing total staff numbers in the division to around 11,000.