RBS Slashes Quarter of Its US Staff

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has become the latest global financial giant to shed staff with a major restructuring in its overseas investment banking operations.

Citing two anonymous sources, Reuters reported that the bank is cutting almost a quarter of its full-time staff from its United States head office in Stamford, Connecticut.

The Edinburgh-headquartered bank employs around 400 people in the United States and is now looking to cut 80 to 90 staff from them.

One of the sources of the publication told that the decision to slash the US workforce came after consultation with several employee unions and representatives.

The other person revealed that this is the part of the bank’s broader plan to cut between 20 to 30 percent of NatWest Markets’ non-UK workforce, along with plans for redundancies across Asia.

“In line with the multi-year process announced in February, we continue to progress our plan to refocus NatWest Markets on activities which directly support the bank’s core customers and on areas where we will have a more stable and consistent revenue stream,” a spokesperson from Natwest Markets told Reuters.

Actions being taken in major offices

The bank reportedly laid off at least eight bankers from its Singapore office, along with some undisclosed redundancies from Hong Kong.

The exited staffers were working on a range of roles including economists, rates traders, and credit traders.

“These are always difficult decisions, but we intend to make NWM a more sustainable business and will be supporting our colleagues through this process,” the spokesperson added.

Last week, HSBC reinstated its plan to cut around 35,000 of its global staff amid the impact on its business due to the global COVID-19 lockdown. With this restructuring, the bank is eying to save $4.5 billion in operational cost.