RBS to cut 162 branches and 792 jobs

Move comes days after taxpayer-owned bank
announced 206% rise in profits

One-Minute Read

While previous branch closures have been blamed on the rise of
online banking, the latest move has been based on its decision
not to sell its Williams & Glynn
business.

RBS, which also owns NatWest, said by not creating the
challenger bank, as it had once been required to do by regulators,
it was removing geographical duplication in its branch network.

It means the bank, which is still majority owned by the taxpayer
following the 2008 bailout, has announced a total of 569 branch
closures in just over a year.

A spokesperson for the bank said RBS customers would be able to
use NatWest branches in England and Wales for “everyday banking
needs”

Yet the timing of announcement has been widely criticised,
coming just days after RBS reported a 206% rise in profits to £792m
in the first quarter of the year, The Independent reports.

Criticising the “shambolically poor management” of its Williams
& Glyn business, the Unite union’s national officer, Rob
MacGregor, questioned the move: “How does a taxpayer-funded
institution spend £1.8bn on a failed IT project and in the next
breath demolish the much needed local bank branches?”

It follows a further round of branch closures confirmed by
Lloyds just a week before it announced a surge in UK profits –
“attracting criticism from a business group which claimed it could
easily afford to give its members better access to their money on
the ground”, says Sky News.