RBS to cut up to 500 jobs in investment banking

The Royal Bank of Scotland is to cut up to 500 jobs in its investment banking division.

A spokesman for the taxpayer-backed lender was unclear last night whether staff in Yorkshire could be affected but much of the investment banking arm is based in London and Edinburgh.

The new round of redundancies, expected to be in back-office roles, comes after RBS, which is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayer, said in August it was going to axe 3,500 positions, including 1,000 in Yorkshire. A further 9,000 nationwide job cuts were announced last year.

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Last week Stephen Hester, the chief executive, visited staff

in Leeds and said he did not believe the Government would sell its shares in RBS until the Independent Commission on Banking had delivered

its report, due by September 2011.

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, he said he hoped the job losses already announced would account for the bulk of the cuts the bank needs to make, but added: "Of course, I'm not a fortune teller so I don't know what other bumps in the road there will be ahead."